"Ambush" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... employment than to contemplate the innumerable casualties which lie in ambush on every side to intercept the happiness of man, and break in upon the hour of delight and tranquillity. He had, however, the consolation of thinking, that he had not been now disappointed by his own fault, and that the accident which had blasted the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... of a few days, it dawned on Prout that he moved in an atmosphere of perpetual ambush. Mysteries hedged him on all sides, warnings ran before his heavy feet, and countersigns were muttered behind his attentive back. McTurk and Stalky invented many absurd and idle phrases—catch-words that swept through the house as fire ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... the Time Machine. The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness. Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Traveller's words, we should have shown him far less scepticism. For we should have perceived his motives; a pork butcher could understand Filby. But the Time Traveller had more than a ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... useless, but even if their murderers had not taken that precaution their victims could have made no sort of a stand. They were taken by surprise. The horrible cries that the pirates made as they rushed from their ambush helped to dishearten the colonists, for they took those noises for the war-cries of savages, and they yielded to the panic. A very few escaped from the slaughter, and hid themselves in the woods in the centre of ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... instant he had flung his dart, hastened to the ambush which he had prepared, and gave them at once the signal and the example of a rapid retreat down the hill. Father Aldrovand would willingly have followed them with a volley of arrows, but the Fleming observed that ammunition was too precious with them to be ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... settled among the English, and who had already attached himself to the white men with an uncommon degree of devotion. But ere the swarthy ambassadors reached the village of Packanokick, they were suddenly attacked by a small party of Narragansett warriors, who lay in ambush near their path through the forest, and were conveyed away captives to the presence of a fierce looking Indian, who appeared to be a man of power and authority, and who was evidently awaiting their arrival in a small temporary ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... the wrongs of their sister Arsinoe. They accordingly concealed themselves at a point of the road which Alcmaeon was compelled to pass, and as he neared the spot they suddenly emerged from their place of ambush, fell ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... gradually away that we did not know when the sound ceased and when the silence began. The streams had a talk to themselves, as they strolled away into the meadow, and an owl or two challenged us, calling up a corporal hawk. This latter fellow bantered and blustered, and finally we fell into an ambush of wild pigs, which charged across the road and plunged into the woods. There were despatch stations at intervals, where horses stood saddled, and the couriers waited for hoof-beats, to be ready to ride ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... may give you a bit of topographical advice," said the courier, "it would be to put yourselves in ambush just beyond Massu; there's a ford opposite to ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... [lacuna] the [lacuna] was persuaded on the part of Masinissa [lacuna] to the Carthaginians [lacuna] warlike [lacuna] was believed, and, therefore, Scipio, sending forward some horsemen on the advice of Masinissa [lacuna] laid an ambush in a suitable spot where they were destined [lacuna] making an onset to simulate flight. Against [lacuna] those wishing to pursue them. This also took place. The Carthaginians attacked them, and ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... captains bold Kept ambush once within a hold. It was in Adullam's cave, Nigh which no water they could have, Nor spring, nor running brook was near To quench the thirst that parch'd them there. Then David, king of Israel, Straight bethought him of ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Love a foeman, Lie in ambush to defeat him; I alone will step to meet him Valiant, his accepted woman. Equal, consort in his car, Ride I to ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... One young spark said something about the Little Statue being a prig, which we all invited him to repeat, but he declined. Had she played the coquette under the innocent mask of sympathy and all other guiles with which gentle slayers ambush strong hearts, I dare affirm there would have been trouble enough and to spare. Suicides, fights, insults and worse, I have witnessed when some fool woman with a fair face came among such men. "Fool" woman, I say, rather than "false"; for to my mind ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... was to abide in the cave till the marshal set out again upon one of his frequent journeys. Then it would be comparatively easy to ascertain by an ambush whether he was taking the captives with him, or if he had left them behind. If the maids were of his travelling company, the three rescuers would be guided by circumstances and the strength of the escort, as to whether or not they should venture to ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... first shooting the plumpest-looking of the females, which had the effect of scaring the rest and making them run in the direction where Fritz was lying in ambush. ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... show no more sign of meaning than the father's. There may have been on the one side and the other just the faintest glitter of recognition, as you see a bayonet shining out of an ambush; but each party fell back, when everything was ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wood slowly, her keen eyes straining for a sign of an ambush. The Terror followed her at a distance of sixty yards, ready to jump off, turn his machine, and fly should she give the alarm. They got no sight of Wiggins till they came, just beyond the end of the wood, to the lodges of Great Deeping Park; then, ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... orders to intimate to the French, the chief of the embassy excepted, that they must lay aside their swords. At the door of the Holy Father's closet, the duke and three gentlemen of his train were alone allowed to enter. The indignation felt by the French was mingled with apprehensions of an ambush. Luxembourg himself could not banish a feeling of vague terror; great was his astonishment when, on his introduction to the pontiff, the latter received him with demonstrations of affection, asked him news of his journey, said he would have liked to give him quarters in the palace, made him sit ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... through a pass between hills of sandstone and rubble, where moss-agates are found (an excellent place for an ambush), we followed the same sort of country as before over a succession of small creeks and divides. These table-lands were always barren, and covered with the same thin gray vegetation, but sometimes adorned with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... into three hostile tribes, and darted upon each other from ambush with dreadful war-whoops, and killed and scalped each other by thousands. It was a gory day. Consequently it was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... check, while Gaston went forth in command of the party, who were certain to fight with a good will where spoil was the object. They would be absent at least two nights, since the pass of the Pyrenees, where they intended to lie in ambush, was at a considerable distance, nor was the time of the arrival of the ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we all know, some of us recalling it, through the mists of years, still fresh with the wonder, wrath, and sorrow which the news aroused here. Out of a company of sixteen thousand that left Cabul, hundreds were slain or died of exhaustion every day, three thousand fell in an ambush, and after a night's exposure to such frost as was never experienced in England. At last, on the 13th of January, 1842, one haggard man, Dr. Brydon, rode up, reeling in his saddle, to the gates of Jellalabad. The fortress was still in the keeping of Sir Robert Sale, who had steadfastly ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... here, was waged against them. Five hundred Bushmen were slaughtered in 1774, three thousand in 1808 and 1809 by the Farmers' Alliance, and so on. They were poisoned like rats, killed by hunters lying in ambush before the carcass of some animal, killed wherever met with.(11) So that our knowledge of the Bushmen, being chiefly borrowed from those same people who exterminated them, is necessarily limited. But still we know ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... struck, but his weapon was also caught. One of the tomahawks was then wrenched out of his grasp. Next moment a blow on the spine laid the dear Missionary low, and a second on the neck almost severed the head from the body. The other Natives then rushed from their ambush, and began dancing round him with frantic shoutings. Mrs. Gordon hearing the noise, came out and stood in front of the Mission House, looking in the direction of her husband's working place, and wondering what had happened. Ouben, one of the party, who ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... passions for Lucille. You know that. So far she has shown herself able to resist his fascinations. He is trying other means. Lucille is in danger! Duson!—but after all, I was never really in danger, except the time when I carried the despatches for the colonel and rode straight into a Boer ambush." ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... over a quarter of a mile off, and will take but a few minutes to reach it. Even if he succeed in eluding the vigilance of the ambushed villains, will it be possible for him to get to the pier, communicate with the boat's crew, and bring them back, before the officers reach the place of ambush? ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... get on his feet, but he could do no more than raise his fore quarters on his knees. As he did so he saw running toward him from the bushes, coatless and hatless, his relentless pursuer. Black Eagle had been tricked. The figure by the distant mustang then, was only a dummy. He had been shot from ambush. ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... Quiett reached the top of each hill he could see his pursuers coming behind him. But he reached home; and when they came to the creek near his home, they were afraid to pass through the woods—probably fearing an ambush—and returned to town. But parties were sent out to take him when he was unprepared; and, finding that he was hunted, he was afraid to stay at home nights. I have heard Mrs. Quiett say, that one day, when her husband had been away several days, ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... was a moment of doubt, then the huge dark bulk was shouldering heavily away, off our starboard quarter. It was only the first of its ugly company. Through sheer carelessness, we had run, as it were, into an ambush—one of the worst bits of water on the Sound, where tide and river currents meet and wrangle. All around us were rearing, white-maned breakers, though the impression we got was less of their white manes than of their dark sides ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... an odour of world-wide incense Went up from Man unto Man; Until, on a solemn feast-day, When the world's usurping lord At a million impious altars His own proud image adored, God spake as He stept from His ambush: "O great in thine own conceit, I will show thee thy source, how humble, Thy goal, ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... ride in the waggon, for they had horses to carry them. At the last moment, indeed, Jan, whose head was still buzzing with the peach-brandy, insisted upon giving Ralph the great schimmel, that same stallion which Sihamba had ridden when she warned us of the ambush in the pass, galloping twenty miles in the hour. This shows me that Providence can turn even a man's vices to account, for afterwards the schimmel ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... shelter'd scene of letter'd talk, With sober step repeat the pensive walk; Nor scorn, when graver triflings fail to please, The cheap amusements of a mind at ease; Here every care in sweet oblivion cast, And many an idle hour—not idly pass'd. No tuneful echoes, ambush'd at my gate, Catch the blest accents of the wise and great. [l] Vain of its various page, no Album breathes The sigh that Friendship or the Muse bequeaths. Yet some good Genii o'er my hearth preside, Oft the far friend, with secret ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... to lose its one statue to its one hero. We all know the story of the gallant young Chevalier d'Assas, captain of an Auvergnat regiment, and of his no less heroic companion, the Sergeant Dubois: how when reconnoitring at night in the forest near Closter-camp, their men in ambush behind them, they came suddenly upon the foe. A dozen bayonets were pointed at their breasts with the whisper, 'Silence ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... proffering ambuscade, the air hung tense along the border. Traders had sent in word that Shawanoes, Delawares, Mingos, Wyandots, and Cherokees were refusing all other exchange than rifles, ammunition, knives, and hatchets. White men were shot down in their fields from ambush. Dead Indians lay among their own young corn, their scalp locks taken. There were men of both races who wanted war and meant to have it—and with ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... The financial warfare is more diabolical than the old literal warfare, but quite as entertaining. There is really as much romance connected with bills of exchange as with swords and lances, and rigging the market is nothing but the modern form of lying in ambush. Goneril and Regan are triumphant; but we may admire the grace of their manners and the dexterity with which they cloak their vices. Iago not only poisons Othello's peace of mind, but, in the world of Balzac, he succeeds to Othello's place, and is universally ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... pass any surprise or ambush was impossible. He had taken careful notice of the mountain walls which shut them in, but he was not so satisfied that they would find the castle open to them. Those who occupied it, if any were there, could hardly have heard of the failure of the meeting yet, and he therefore ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... would not allow him, because, although they had not yet entered the Indian territory, the crafty foe might have scouts out on this side of the river, and in that case there was no hope of Woody Island. The Indians would be in ambush among the trees on the bank, and the four would be shot ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... and as inefficient on reconnaissance as in action. For an invading army, information, ample and accurate, is the first requisite. Operating in a country which, almost invariably, must be better known to the defenders, bold scouting alone will secure it from ambush and surprise. Bold scouting was impossible with such mounted troops as Banks possessed, and throughout the Valley campaign the Northern general was simply groping ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... a careless man succeeds not, though he use the right expedients: a clever hunter, though well placed in ambush, kills not his quarry if he ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... I stood in ambush watching her, and with each minute I grew more impatient. At last I began to doubt—to have strange thoughts. The green walls were growing dark. The sun was sinking; a sharp, white peak, miles and miles away, which closed the vista of the ride, began to flush and colour rosily. Finally, ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... drunkenness. There is many a young man beset by temptation who has in reality to fight far harder if he will maintain his integrity than any soldier belonging to an army making its way through an enemy's country. He does not know when an ambush may be sprung upon him, or from what side the attack may come. In an old tower on the Continent they show you, graven again and again on the stones of one of the dungeons, the word Resist. It is said that a Protestant woman was kept in that hideous place for forty years, and during all ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... business; that since I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperadoes, the least I could do was to overhear them at their councils, and that my plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage, under the favorable ambush of the crouching trees. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... take a petty officer and four men and lead a point," Lieutenant Trent ordered. "I don't want the 'glory' of running a command into an ambush." ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... for whose peaceful bringing up the mother so cunningly provides, do not imitate her caution. They begin their hunting by lying in ambush about the nearest farm; the first stray chicken they see is game. Once they begin to plunder in this way, and feed full on their own hunting, parental authority is gone; the mother deserts the den immediately, leading the cubs far away. But some of them go back, contrary ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... were by no means unschooled in the current sharp practices of commercialism. A strong cabal of them hatched up a scheme by which they would take Vanderbilt's bribe money, and then ambush him for still greater spoils. They knew that even if they gave him the franchise, its validity would not stand the test of the courts. The Legislature claimed the exclusive power of granting franchises; astute lawyers assured them that this claim would be upheld. Their plan ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... the country comes into the town in the shape of a downright storm of wind and rain, which shakes the tiles on the roofs, and now and then flings one after you, while the streets become rivers, and every corner an ambush from which the whirlwind makes a sudden attack upon your umbrella, and, after a more or less prolonged and adroit struggle, tears it, and turns it inside out, until at last you stand with only the stick and the ribs left in your hand—at ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... said he plaid well, And so indeed he do's: he undertook for ye, Because I would not sit so long time idle, I made my liberty, avoided your mate, And he again as cunningly endangered me, Indeed he put me strangely to it. When presently Hearing you come, & having broke his ambush too, Having the second time brought off my Queen fair, I rose o'th' sudden smilingly to shew ye, My apron caught the Chesse-board, and the men, And ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... interests represented by the paper, and to misrepresent and traduce those who dare to criticize or oppose the plans of those who hide behind the paper. Such journalists are members of a kind of "Black Hand Society"; they are assassins, hiding in ambush and striking in the dark; and the worst of it is that the readers have no sure way of knowing when a real change takes place in the ownership of such a paper notwithstanding the fact that a recent law requires publication ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... loss strengthened the Emperor's desire for a truce, a feeling not lessened by a mishap befalling one of his divisions, which fell into an ambush laid by the Prussians at Hainau, and lost 1,500 men ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... heavy, black, was the one sinister feature of the man's otherwise rather open and confidence-winning face. It was a cloud that more than half obscured the nature of the man, an ambush where his passions and dark ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... the deceased were barred from wearing good clothing, from taking part in any pastimes or festivals, and their food was of the poorest and meanest quality. To remove this ban, the warriors would don white head-bands, arm themselves, and sally forth either to attack a hostile village or to ambush an unsuspecting foe. Neighboring villages were, out of necessity, usually on good terms, but friendly relations seldom extended beyond the second or third settlement, a distance of ten or fifteen miles. Beyond these limits most of the ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... the clatter of a horse's feet, near the spot from which the shots had come, and by the sound knew that the unseen marksman had chosen to retire with only half his evident purpose accomplished, rather than take the risk that had arisen with Patches' success in turning the ambush ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... the late melting of snow, and Nagger sunk deep. The lion left a plain track. Here he stole steadily along; there he left many tracks at a point where he might have halted to make sure of his scent. He was circling on the trail of the stallion, with cunning intent of ambush. The end of this slow, careful stalk of the lion, as told in his tracks, came upon the edge of a knoll where he had crouched ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... laboring feet, the Legionaries charged. At any second, a raking volley might burst from the dunes. The lethal pellets—so few in this vast space—might not have taken effect. Not one heart there but was steeling itself against ambush and a shriveling fire. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... stratagem unskill'd, Sends his light horse before to scour the field: Himself, thro' steep ascents and thorny brakes, A larger compass to the city takes. This news my scouts confirm, and I prepare To foil his cunning, and his force to dare; With chosen foot his passage to forelay, And place an ambush in the winding way. Thou, with thy Volscians, face the Tuscan horse; The brave Messapus shall thy troops inforce With those of Tibur, and the Latian band, Subjected all to thy supreme command." This ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... the merry program rolling. No one in sight," the youth continued, as they stepped into the street and he glanced its length in both directions. "Have the enemy deserted the field, or are they lying in ambush for us?" ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... subtler penalties—the degradation, the growth of callousness to finer pleasures, the loss of sensitiveness to all that is most nobly attractive in woman—are too feeble to withstand temptation when it lies in ambush like a garrotter, and has the reason stunned in ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... older, knew more, and had done more crime. Henry raised his rifle a little. From the point where he lay he might reach Blackstaffe with a bullet, but he could not do it. He could not shoot a man from ambush. ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... what manner he obtained a head, and the victim might be, not only a person with whom he had no quarrel, but even a member of a friendly tribe, and the mode of acquisition might be, not by a fair stand-up fight, a test of skill and courage, but by treachery and ambush. Nor did it make very much difference whether the head obtained was that of a man, a woman or a child, and in their petty wars it was even conceived to be an honourable distinction to bring in the heads of women and children, the ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... vigour, and enchain thy powers? While artful shades thy downy couch enclose, And soft solicitation courts repose, Amidst the drowsy charms of dull delight, Year chases year with unremitted flight, Till Want now following, fraudulent and slow, Shall spring to seize thee, like an ambush'd foe. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... question with that innocent air," said Mrs. Montague to herself, with some disappointment; "the strange resemblance must be only a coincidence, striking though it is. But I would really like to know where Walter Dinsmore's niece is. I feel as if I had an enemy in ambush all the time, for she would have it in her power to do me a great deal of harm if she could prove her identity. I am half sorry that Ruth doesn't prove to be she, for having her here, under my eye, I could ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... future. Dangers have been in frequent ambush along our path, but we have uncovered and vanquished them all. Passion has swept some of our communities, but only to give us a new demonstration that the great body of our people are stable, patriotic, and law-abiding. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... men in ambush, near by that path, within the wood. He told over to them, like a cunning captain, the crafty plan he had devised, and taught them how to play their parts, and to call upon his name. When the foe had entered on that perilous path, and were altogether taken in the snare, Eliduc cried his ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... had made a general onslaught on the table, and raised an uproar beyond bounds, and annoyed, to the last degree, the guests and their host. Wherefore, on this day, the Sultan had commanded that a band of archers, standing in ambush, should watch, so that for every cat who, holding before its face the buckler of impudence should enter the plain of audacity, the very first morsel that it ate ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... generally have in such circumstances—and they were later than usual in going to bed. Mr Bones was therefore, much against his will, obliged to delay the execution of his plans. Little dreaming that two admirers lay in ambush about fifty yards off, he retired to a dark corner behind a bit of old wall, and there, appropriately screened by a laurel bush, lit his pipe and ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... still with the brisk military carriage, the ready military salute. Three ways led through this piece of country; and as I was inconstant in my choice, I believe he must often have awaited me in vain. But often enough, he caught me; often enough, from some place of ambush by the roadside, he would spring suddenly forth in the regulation attitude, and launching at once into his inconsequential talk, fall into step with me upon my farther course. "A fine morning, sir, though perhaps a trifle inclining to rain. I hope I see you well, sir. Why, no, sir, I don't ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... destined to succeed to it, broke out into open war. And, dividing themselves into two companies, one part of them marched openly from Sphettus, with their father, against the city, the other, hiding themselves in the village of Gargettus, lay in ambush, with a design to set upon the enemy on both sides. They had with them a crier of the township of Agnus, named Leos, who discovered to Theseus all the designs of the Pallantidae He immediately fell ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... does it right. But he knows you think Injun, you live Injun, you eat Injun, you smell Injun when you do. They don't leave no more trail than an ant steppin' high, 'less they want you should foller them into a nice ambush as they has all figgered out. Put Greyfeather an' his Pimas on 'em an' then leg it till your belly's near meetin' your backbone an' you is all one big tired ache. Iffen you kin drink sand an' keep on footin' it over red-hot rocks when you is nigh t' a bag o' ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... voice seemed to break into speech; 'Dead!' The viewless air seemed to be flocking with hidden listeners. The very clearness and the crystal silence were their ambush. He alone seemed to be the target of cold and hostile scrutiny. There was not a breath to breathe in this crisp, pale sunshine. It was all too rare, too thin. The shadows lay like wings everlastingly folded. The robin that had been his only living witness lifted its throat, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... looking sharp out, however, for some of the Indians had been treated by Macgregor so brutally, I am sorry to say, that we knew our scalps were not safe. Next morning I happened to pass close by the place where the Indians lay in ambush, and we came to the top of a precipice that overlooked the spot. We saw them before they saw us, so we went quietly back into the bush, tied our horses to trees, and lay on the edge of the cliff ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... tribe should invade the land nearest to it. The result was that they were, though with trouble, repulsed. Until lately, no leader ventured to follow the gipsies to their strongholds, for they were reputed invincible behind their stockades. By infesting the woods and lying in ambush they rendered communication between city and city difficult and dangerous, except to bodies of armed men, and every waggon had to be defended ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... proceeded from four pads In ambush laid, who had perceived him loiter Behind his carriage; and, like handy lads, Had seized the lucky hour to reconnoitre, In which the heedless gentleman who gads Upon the road, unless he prove a fighter, May find himself within that isle of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... screen. Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart One moment through thy soul the soft surprise Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,— Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart Sleepless ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... the state of affairs, and the idea that there might be treachery afoot was completely dismissed from the minds of all, save when, now and then, the gleam of a spear head was seen amidst the trees in the jungle; and Major Sandars pointed out how easily they might be led into an ambush. ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... troupe, because the Tartar euer practiseth to gette his enemie in the midst and so to enuiron him. Let our bands take this caveat also, if the enemie retire, not to make any long pursuit after him, lest peraduenture (according to his custome) he might draw them into some secret ambush: for the Tartar fights more by policie than by maine force. Those horses which the Tartars vse one day, they ride not vpon three or foure dayes after. Moreouer, if the Tartars draw homeward, our men must not therefore depart and casseir their bandes, or separate themselues asunder: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... her thousand tongues, had little to say of the fate of this poor youth. It was known that he led a squad of troopers detailed for special service, and that his command, with small knowledge of the country, fell into an ambush from which not more than two or three extricated themselves. Beyond this all was mystery, for those who survived that desperate skirmish could say nothing of the fate of their companions. The loss of ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... his post there for life. Richard knew nothing of these proceedings, and wondered at the absence of his two noble messengers, who had started for Chester eight days before. Northumberland, meanwhile, having left his men concealed in ambush "under the rough and lofty cliffs of a rock," proceeded with five or six only towards Conway. When he reached the arm[67] of the sea which washes the walls of that fortress, he sent over a herald, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... expecting news, priceless news, so I don't want Mitya at all. And he didn't believe, I feel he didn't, that I should stay at Kuzma Kuzmitch's. He must be in his ambush now, behind Fyodor Pavlovitch's, in the garden, watching for me. And if he's there, he won't come here, so much the better! But I really have been to Kuzma Kuzmitch's, Mitya escorted me there. I told him I should stay there till midnight, and I asked him to be sure to come ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... o'er a mountain, In ambush for the dark, And a traveller in the vale below Rejoicing like a lark; A taper nearly vanished Amid the dawning gray, And a maiden lifting up her head, And lo, ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... continued for several days, and their vigilance was relaxed by custom (an effect which is generally produced by time), the Bellovaci, having made themselves acquainted with the daily stations of our horse, lie in ambush with a select body of foot in a place covered with woods; to it they sent their horse the next day, who were first to decoy our men into the ambuscade, and then when they were surrounded, to attack them. It was ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... fortunate escape, Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease, And Night's dark reign restores their wonted peace. For now the gale subsides, and from each bough The roosting pheasant's short but frequent crow Invites to rest; and huddling side by side, The herd in closest ambush seek to hide; Seek some warm slope with shagged moss o'erspread, Dry'd leaves their copious covering and their bed. In vain may Giles, thro' gath'ring glooms that fall, And solemn silence, urge his piercing call: Whole days and nights they ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... enemy, desiring to bring her into her power, or, at least, to conciliate her, planned a marriage between Jeanne's son and Marguerite of Valois—sister of Charles IX. When the suggestion that the marriage should take place came from the king of France, Jeanne d'Albret suspected an ambush; with the determination to supervise personally all arrangements for the nuptials, she set out for the French court. Venerated by the Protestants, and hated but admired by the Catholics, she had become celebrated throughout Europe ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... with a view to cover, it was a strategic position, and they were satisfied with it. The cattle, turned loose from the corrals, must pass up or down the valley; similarly, any number of men must approach from one of these two directions, which meant that the ambush could not be avoided. ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... of you," cried the promoter, coming quickly up to him; "you are rushing on certain destruction. You must not go nigh that cottage to-day; no, nor for several days to come. Foes are lying in ambush round it; and the only spectacle you will afford her you love will ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... should give way, and bad people should intrude into our garden! Ah, Marianne says that misfortune lurks everywhere in the world, lying in ambush for those who think themselves safe, destroying their happiness, and making them wholly miserable; and people only laugh and rejoice that another man's hopes have been wrecked! Ah, and I have felt so secure in my happiness! ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... oft the tender nursery-maid, While in her ear her love his tale doth pour; Meantime her infant doth her charge evade, And rambleth sagely on the sandy shore, Till the sly sea-crab, low in ambush laid, Seizeth his leg and biteth him full sore. Ah me! what sounds the shuddering echoes bore When his small ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... not possess the spirit of a martyr, resolved to prevent the designs which he suspected. He boldly treated with the princes of the Huns; secured, by solemn oaths, his pardon and reward; posted a numerous detachment of Barbarians, in silent ambush, on the banks of the Danube; and, at the appointed hour, opened, with his own hand, the gates of his episcopal city. This advantage, which had been obtained by treachery, served as a prelude to more ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... endangered by an act of carelessness, and may even yet be lost. It is all the same whether one be at sea or face to face with the enemy. A ship at sea is like an army in battle. The tempest, though unseen, is ever present; the sea is an ambush. Death is the fit penalty for every fault committed when facing the enemy. There is no fault that can be retrieved. Courage must be ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... not to hear this. Having been fired on from ambush, as it were, he immediately started discussing an order for some ship timbers for the Emergency Fleet Corporation. When he retired to his own office, however, he locked the door and wept with sympathy for his son, so far away and in the ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... the furniture was all at Howards End, but could be seen on Monday next at 3 p.m., when a charwoman would be in attendance. It was a cold letter, and the more plausible for that. Helen would think she was offended. And on Monday next she and Henry were to lunch with Dolly, and then ambush themselves in the garden. ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... capture must be a clue to something; it was natural, perhaps, to jump to the conclusion that it concerned these robberies, but Quarles's arguments did not altogether convince me. I had half a dozen men hunting for young Squires, who had almost certainly led us into an ambush that night and who had disappeared completely. His old haunts had not known him for a long time; his old companions had lost sight of him. It was generally understood that he had cut his old ways and had turned pious, an evident reference ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... settled himself for a long cold wait in his tree when, without a sound, the white wolf turned and trotted swiftly away into the forest, the whole pack following. The trapper stared after them, unable to believe his eyes. Fearing an ambush, he waited for some time; then as the wolves did not reappear, he lowered himself cautiously from the tree and set out once more for his cabin, minus his snowshoes and greatly perplexed at the mystery. Dave could not know that the ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... that the girl is not deceiving us," observed the lieutenant. "Is it not possible that she may have been sent merely to beguile us into an ambush?" ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... return, about seven o'clock in the morning, by a little stream in the present village of South Deerfield, since called Bloody Brook in memory of the event, the soldiers dispersed somewhat in quest of grapes, then ripe, when a sudden and fatal volley from an ambush was delivered upon them. The men had left their muskets in the wagons and could not regain them. Lothrop was shot dead, and but seven or eight of his company escaped alive. A monument marks the spot ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... poised at the apex of my upturned gaze, appeared to be absolutely stationary; a little brown flycatcher, darting across my path, made much commotion. Red-crested woodpeckers hammered industriously in dead wood for rations. So long as their tappings resounded ahead of me I feared no ambush. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... They prepared an ambush for him—which means that they set a trap for him. Weyler was walking into it, and in a few minutes would have been surrounded by the Cubans, who had planned to take him prisoner, when unfortunately one of the Cuban guns went off. The Spaniards were instantly warned that they were in danger, made ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 15, February 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Mankind, I was surpriz'd to meet with very unsuitable Returns from my Fellow-Creatures. Never was poor Author so beset with Pamphleteers, who sometimes marched directly against me, but oftner shot at me from strong Bulwarks, or rose up suddenly in Ambush. They were of all Characters and Capacities, some with Ensigns of Dignity, and others in Liveries; but what most surpriz'd me, was to see two or three in black Gowns among my Enemies. It was no small Trouble to me, sometimes to have ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... its way out of the valley of the broader stream some miles further to the north and in face of the Red Rock country to the northeast, but it had not been traveled in safety for a year. Both Byrne and Plume believed it beset with peril, watched from ambush by invisible foes who could be relied upon to lurk in hiding until the train was within easy range, then, with sudden volley, to pick off the officers and prominent sergeants and, in the inevitable confusion, aided by their goatlike ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... opponent among the trees was hard to see and harder to hit. To try to rush so good an archer, though risky, would certainly have been his scheme, had he not strongly suspected that this one man was set as a decoy to tempt him into an ambush. His blood was up, and he vowed that run he would not at any cost; and, in fact, flight was far from easy, for behind him lay the stream, and in ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... myself, I suddenly burst into hysterical tears, and left the room. They thought it was my strange temper, but I was only miserable that the enemy—my Philistine—was upon me, when he was only lurking in ambush for the time when my weakness would ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... seem'd Ascending from that funeral pile, where lay The Theban brothers?" He replied: "Within Ulysses there and Diomede endure Their penal tortures, thus to vengeance now Together hasting, as erewhile to wrath. These in the flame with ceaseless groans deplore The ambush of the horse, that open'd wide A portal for that goodly seed to pass, Which sow'd imperial Rome; nor less the guile Lament they, whence of her Achilles 'reft Deidamia yet in death complains. And there is rued the stratagem, that Troy Of her Palladium ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... had come: The Logik. Three volumes. The bristling Gothic text an ambush of secret, exciting, formidable things. The titles flamed; flags of strange battles; signals of strange ships; challenging, enticing ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair |
