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Ambuscade

noun
1.
The act of concealing yourself and lying in wait to attack by surprise.  Synonyms: ambush, lying in wait, trap.






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"Ambuscade" Quotes from Famous Books



... 'intent was particular against Sir Walter Ralegh and others.' He thought this a proof that 'it was no matter of treason against her Majesty, but rather a manifestation of the contrary.' Essex gave out that his rising was prompted by a discovery that there was an ambuscade of musketeers placed upon the water by the device of Lord Cobham and Ralegh, to murder him in the way as he passed. Blount, at his trial, confessed there was no foundation for the allegation. In reply to Cecil, who asked if he thought Cobham and Ralegh had projected the ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... all this while had made his guard delay The knight with words, till horse and foot he spied Arrived, where he this ambuscade did lay; When from the gate he with as many hied: As is the practised hunter's wonted way, To circle wood and beasts on every side: As nigh Volana, with his sweeping nets, The wary fisher fish and ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... several voices at once began answering the interpreter. A French officer, returning from the advanced detachment, rode up to Murat and reported that the gates of the citadel had been barricaded and that there was probably an ambuscade there. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... are contained in Thatcher's Military Journal and in Drake's Book of the Indians. The account of the marching out of a large body of the Americans from one of the forts to hold a parley, by agreement, and then being drawn into an ambuscade and all put to death, is false; the account of seventy continental soldiers being butchered after having surrendered, is totally untrue. No regular troops surrendered, and all escaped who survived the battle of the 3rd. Equally untrue is the story of the burning of the houses, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... on its margin. On they bounded, further and further, and a few moments more found them in the dense wood, where not a sunbeam could reach the ground. But suddenly the leaves rustled behind them, and the twigs cracked, and there sprung, from an ambuscade in the thicket, the tall figure of an Indian, who laid a strong hand on the arm of each little girl, and, despite the cries, tears, and entreaties of the poor children, hurried them deeper into the forest, where they found a large body of these cruel savages, clad in moose and ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams

... be puzzled by the answer. Then the full meaning of it seemed to fall upon him like a blow, and his face blazed at the insult. "Nevers! You! Ah, this is an ambuscade, and I have sat at drink ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... well justified. At a spot where the road was particularly rough, and ran across some marsh land, he perceived a short distance from him a dark shadow, which his practised eye detected at once as a body of crouching men. Reining up his horse within a few yards of the ambuscade, he wrapped his cloak round his bridle-arm and summoned ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... was neither overly imaginative nor of a romantic turn of mind; but, the circumstances reviewed, it's nothing to his discredit that he entertained a passing suspicion of some curious conspiracy against the girl, thought of an ambuscade, and with quick eyes raked the surroundings for signs of ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... Turk before him, he backed toward the shadowed recess, with the one idea of shielding Cara. But the darker spot was the door behind which Sayed Ayoub lay in ambuscade, and as Karyl reached it, it swung open, showing them against a background as bright as though they were ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... late from the supper-room, and he was sorrowfully walking along the streets of Sion, accompanied by a few disciples and women, when all on a sudden a band of armed men, who were lying in ambuscade in the neighbourhood of Caiphas's tribunal, fell upon them, and laid hands upon Joseph, whereupon his companions fled, uttering loud cries of terror. He was confined in a tower contiguous to the city wall, not far ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... discipline, and equipment could hardly fail to tell greatly to their advantage. But they are called upon to face a foe that shuns general engagements, that can choose and does choose its own ground, that from the nature of the country is visible or invisible at pleasure, and that fights only from ambuscade and when all the advantages of position and numbers are on its side. In a country where all that is indispensable to life in the way of food, clothing, and shelter is so easily obtainable, especially by ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... accordingly they themselves set fire to it, and totally destroyed it. The captain, having arrived at his destination at midnight, with all possible secrecy leaped ashore, and arranged his men and the Pintados [42] Indians whom he had with him in ambuscade near the villages, in order to make the attack upon them at daybreak. However, the natives of this island having been informed of the hostile incursion of the Spaniards, withdrew with their children and wives and all ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair

... Roman youth, exulting in their blood, and insolence, and vigor.—The first of them, Ottavio, was killed by a cannon-ball at sea in honorable combat with the Turk. Another, Girolamo, who sought refuge in France, was shot down in an ambuscade while pursuing his amours with a gentle lady. A third, Alessandro, died under arms before Paris in the troops of General Farnese. A fourth, Luca, was imprisoned at Rome for his share of the step-mother's murder, but was released on the plea that he had ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... disappearance of his captors, and the deathlike silence that surrounded him. Too vigilant to be taken at unawares, and perhaps long since apprised of the coming of the band, the Indians had resumed their hiding-places in the grass and among the bushes, preparing for the new-comers an ambuscade similar to that they had so successfully practised against Roland's unfortunate party. "Let them hide as they will, detestable miscreants," he uttered to himself with feelings of vindictive triumph; "they will ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... pressing them hotly to prevent General Linares from gaining time to make preparations for an encounter, when the Rough Riders, as Colonel Wood's regiment was termed, and the First and Tenth Cavalry fell into an ambuscade. Then what will probably be known as the battle of La ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... spirit of vengeance, or the ambition of striking a glorious coup by my capture—have continued the pursuit? If so we might expect to encounter them on their return; or, if first perceived, we might fall into an ambuscade. In either case should they chance to outnumber us—to any great extent—a collision would ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... there were no enemy within striking reach, well, then this were a pleasant march from Neville to Binch, for that is where I'm told we are going. But, faith, I don't like the sight of this country in which we are being entangled. If Conde has any head, and he is not a fool, he could arrange a fine ambuscade, and catch those mighty and vain-glorious Imperialists and that fool Souches like rats in a trap. Or he might make a sudden attack on the flank and cut our army into two, as you divide a caterpillar crawling ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... reservation the leading chiefs come in camp to interview the officers, shake hands, beg tobacco, and try on their clothes, then go back to their braves and laugh as they tell there are only a handful, and plan the morrow's ambuscade and massacre. Vae victis! There are women and children among the garrisons along the Union Pacific whose hearts have little room for thoughts of germans in the horror of this morning's tidings. But Sibley is miles and miles away, ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... knew what he was doing, had obeyed. The surprise was complete and irremediable. Coming on the top crest of his murderous intentions, he had walked straight into an ambuscade, and now stood, with his hands impotently lifted, staring at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... by the commission of actual hostilities within the territories of the United States. The ship Grange, a British vessel which had been cleared out from Philadelphia, was captured by the French frigate L'Ambuscade within the capes of the Delaware, while on her way to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... purple was the Prince Imperial, whose fate beggars tragedy; who went to gather laurels on an African desert and fell a victim to a savage ambuscade—his beautiful body stuck almost as full of cruel darts as that of the ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... broad daylight, and, consequently, there was little cause of immediate alarm, the worthy publican carried on his shoulder a musket on full cock; and each moment he kept peeping about, as if not only every bush, but every blade of grass contained an ambuscade, ready to spring up the instant he was off his guard. By his side the redoubted Jacobina, who had transferred to her new master, the attachment she had originally possessed for the Corporal, trotted peeringly along, her tail perpendicularly cocked, and her ears moving ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... elegiac sadness [says Liszt] predominates, intersected by wild movements, melancholy smiles, unexpected starts, and intervals of rest full of dread such as those experience who have been surprised by an ambuscade, who are surrounded on all sides, for whom there dawns no hope upon the vast horizon, and to whose brain despair has gone like a deep draught of Cyprian wine, which gives a more instinctive rapidity to every ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... there; but the undergrowth had all been burned away down to the bare earth, and was now springing up again, fresh and green, in little irregular patches, all over the open area. The spot would serve admirably for an ambuscade, for while it was sufficiently open to permit of straight shooting, there was cover enough to conceal a hundred men, or more, at need. But what made the place especially suitable for our purpose was the fact that away over in one corner of the clearing ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... they departed, three times fifty warriors, and the same number of women, and dogs, and servants, and Deirdre went with them. And for a long time they wandered about Ireland, in homage to this man or that; and often Conor sought to slay them, either by ambuscade or by treachery; from round about Assaroe, near to Ballyshannon in the west, they journeyed, and they turned them back to Benn Etar, in the north-east, which men to-day call the Mountain of Howth. Nevertheless the men of Ulster drave them from the land, and they came to the land of Alba, ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... now made a conspiracy to destroy him. he made a proposal to Cyrus: if Cyrus would furnish him with a thousand horsemen, he would deal with these troopers, who were burning down everything in front of them; he would lay an ambuscade and cut them down, or he would capture a host of them alive; in any case, he would put a stop to their aggressiveness and burnings; he would see to it that they did not ever get a chance of setting ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... (they are at least twelve feet long by ten feet high), and, having hewn them, to carry them underground (they weigh on an average between sixty and seventy tons), and finally to range them in rows here in these strange chambers, where they stand as if in ambuscade on either side of us as we pass? Each in its turn has contained quite comfortably the mummy of a bull Apis, armoured in plates of gold. But in spite of their weight, in spite of their solidity which effectively defies destruction, they have been despoiled[*]—when is not precisely known, probably ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... observed carrying wounded men and ranging them comfortably around the many hay and straw stacks of the neighborhood. Inquiry revealed that a reconnoitring party, misled by the apparent quiet of the other side, had crossed, fallen into an ambuscade, and under the most galling of fires, artillery and musketry, kept up most unmercifully by the advancing rebels, who thus ungraciously repaid the courtesy shown them the day after Antietam—had been compelled to recross that most difficult ford. Our loss was ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... frequently made a matter of reproach to him;—a sign surely of the penury of subjects for satire in his life and character, since an accident, which might have happened to the greatest hero who ever lived, was resorted to as an imputation on his honour. The Rose-alley ambuscade became almost proverbial;[22] and even Mulgrave, the real author of the satire, and upon whose shoulders the blows ought in justice to have descended, mentions the circumstance in his "Art of Poetry;" with a cold and self-sufficient ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... besieged by Philip, various sallies were made from the city, some of which were successful. But the treachery of Lasthenes and his accomplices ruined all. A body of five hundred horse were led by him into an ambuscade, and captured by the besiegers. See Appendix I.] by whose betrayal Olynthus fell? The creatures of Philip; they that, while the city stood, slandered and calumniated the honest counselors so effectually, that the Olynthian people were induced ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes

... nose? and can he follow a clean scent?" exclaimed the marine; "do you think, Signor Pilota, that a general ever puts his forces in an ambuscade where he can't find them himself? 'Fore God! I knew well enough where the rascals lay snoring on their knapsacks, some half an hour ago, and I would have given the oldest majority in Washington's ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... were quartered, slaughtered the surprised Scots at their leisure. Luckily for Mar, the whole of his knights and men-at-arms were far away, uselessly watching the bridge, over which they had expected the disinherited to force a passage. Thus saved from the night ambuscade, the kernel of the Scottish army prepared next morning, August 12, to attack the disinherited. Puffed up by the memory of Bannockburn and the consciousness of superior numbers, they marched to battle as if certain of victory. All fought ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... as it became known that Genet's privateers, manned by seamen enlisted in our ports, were preying on British commerce, and that the French man-of-war L'Ambuscade had taken an English vessel, The Grange, within the capes of the Delaware, Hammond filed a memorial in regard to these incidents. In so doing he was of course quite right, and the government responded immediately, and proceeded in good ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... Liberators marched twelve miles in a northwesterly direction to Coro. They arrived an hour before dawn, and found the town silent and deserted. Dividing themselves into two parties, they entered cautiously on opposite sides, for fear of an ambuscade,—but, unfortunately, when the detachments met in the Grand Plaza, they mistook each other, in the dusk of the morning, for the enemy, and fired. Miranda's most efficient officer fell, shot through both thighs. One man was killed, and seven ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... standing for Sardinia, which they saw on the 23d in the evening, when his lordship sent the Juno with orders for the transports to join him. At sunset, on the 26th, the fleet anchored in the Gulph of Palma; where Lord Nelson found his old friend, Admiral Louis, in the Ambuscade, who had sailed from England the 16th of February. The whole of this night, and the three following days, were employed in clearing transports. On the 29th, the Seahorse brought intelligence that the French fleet were safe in port on Sunday the ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... said, speaking very earnestly, "that that is exactly what they are hoping for? This ambuscade didn't just happen—it is manufactured—it is politics. Men like these haven't the initiative, or whatever you call it, to get up a thing of this sort. Some one has done it for them. Don't you know ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... commencement of the 17th century. Previously, for an indefinite period, they dwelt on the Kabompo river, 200 m. to the N.E. of their present country, and here the descendants of a section of the tribe which did not migrate still remain, under the name Balokwakwa (men of the ambuscade), formerly known as Aalukolui. That the Barotse at a still more remote period emigrated from the far north-east is indicated by vague tradition as well as by a certain similarity in type and language to some tribes living in that direction, though the fact that natives from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... the far warble of blown bugles. Again I see the tall, blue smoke of camp-fires ascending from the dim valleys of Wonderland. There steals upon my sense the ghost of an odor from pines that canopy the ambuscade. I feel upon my cheek the morning mist that shrouds the hostile camp unaware of its doom, and my blood stirs at the ringing rifle-shot of the solitary sentinel. Unfamiliar landscapes, glittering with sunshine ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... was in an ambuscade. That was something peculiar to the Indians. The English had never heard of that way of fighting before they came to America. The Indians would lie down flat on the ground or stand behind trees or in a bush or thicket. When the ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney

... I to take for this?" answered the cautious soldier—"A man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an ambuscade." ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... never much glory in falling in an ambuscade. It is a death which always implies a little rashness or want of foresight. Often, indeed, he who falls in one meets with but little pity. Those who are not pitied, Raoul, have died to little purpose. Still further, the conqueror ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... is terrifying in its possibilities. The touch of cold window bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch of a toad; the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and bewildering appearances, as if to lead him farther from his way. For Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was real danger as well ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... up with dry eye and shut lips,—dumb prayers, wrung out of some depth within, such as Christian sent out of the slough, when he was like to die. But he did stop at the tavern, and there drank some brandy to steady his nerves; and he did not forget that there was an ambuscade of Rebels at Blue's Gap, and that he was to share in the attack on them at daylight: he spurred his horse, as he drew nearer Romney. Dode, being a woman, thinking love lost, sat by the fire, looking vacantly at nothing. Yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... considerable amount of amusement out of this unexpected happening. He evidently considered that he had been in for more or less luck simply because he happened to be in Fred's company when the other ran into the ambuscade. Colon was not averse to an occasional measure of excitement, and although not all considered a pugnacious fellow, he could at the same time hold his own ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... not pass unnoticed, which is, that in America, the major part of which is still an uncleared country, the system of warfare naturally partakes much of the Indian practices of surprise and ambuscade; and the invaders will always have to labour under the great disadvantage of the Americans having that perfect knowledge of the country which ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... appeared on the highway within half a mile. They were travelling very fast, in full retreat, and were coming his way. On the crest of the hill over which the road ran, Rolf saw them suddenly drop to the ground and take up position to form a most dangerous ambuscade, and half a mile away, straggling through the woods, running or striding, were the men in the colours he loved. They had swept the enemy before them, so far, but trained troops speedily recover from ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... after this, while we sail on through cataracts, and along the smoother stretches we've got to keep our eyes peeled for signs of an ambuscade," Teddy observed. "Well, luckily we've got some pretty sharp-eyed fellows along with us; and then there are the experienced guides. Who cares for expenses? As long as I can poke into unknown sections ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson

... also—which had certainly not been in her mind before—to keep her husband away from herself. Something latent in the situation had surprised her with this effect. It had arisen out of the quarrel like a sharpshooter out of an ambuscade. Her right to go out alone had now only the value of a mere pretext for far more extensive independence. The ultimate extent of these independences, she still ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... would have entered the city without resistance. Yet we must not too hastily condemn that ceremonious promenading of the Lilies through Champagne. By the march to Reims the French party, those Armagnacs reviled for their cruelty and felony, that little King of Bourges compromised in an infamous ambuscade, may have won advantages greater and more solid than the conquest of the county of Maine and the duchy of Normandy and than a victorious assault on the first city of the realm. By retaking his towns of Champagne and of France without bloodshed, King Charles appeared to advantage as a good and ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... Joyce," observed the captain, after musing a little; "to me it seems like an attempt to induce us to follow, and to draw us into an ambuscade." ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... to have the desired effect with the Carliles and their adherents. They carry on the war in ambuscade, and are selling, without fear, books and 77 pamphlets, of which but for the Constitutional Committee, as they call themselves, perhaps half the world would have known nothing. Such, however, is frequently the effect of intemperate zeal, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... nations of America, as indeed in every instance where mankind are not greatly corrupted, is fortitude. Yet their way of maintaining this point of honour, is very different from that of the nations of Europe. Their ordinary method of making war is by ambuscade; and they strive, by overreaching an enemy, to commit the greatest slaughter, or to make the greatest number of prisoners, with the least hazard to themselves. They deem it a folly to expose their own persons in assaulting an enemy, and do not ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... the world; and she surpassed herself to-night. I suppose I must vote for that bill, in the end maybe; but that is not a matter of much consequence the government can stand it. She is bent on capturing me, that is plain; but she will find by and by that what she took for a sleeping garrison was an ambuscade." ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... for himself, fortunately—to seize the caves. As they raged against each other no less desperately than against their human adversaries, the issue of the war was never in doubt. The Hillmen stood together solidly, fought with all their cunning of pitfall and ambuscade, and overwhelmed the mightiest by sheer weight of numbers. But again the victory was dearly bought. When the last of the monsters, sullen and amazed, withdrew to seek less difficult encounters, he left mourning and lamentation ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... wide belt that terminated in a low range of hills. The slopes of the rising ground were fairly steep except at a gap in the centre, where a deep ravine had been utilized by the makers of the road. It was an ideal spot for an ambuscade. Sheltering behind the cacti that abundantly covered the hill the Haussas could extend on a fairly broad front, and concentrate a heavy fire upon any enemy retiring along the path. The maxim on its tripod mounting was set up to enable it to sweep the expected column with an oblique fire, ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman

... that critical pawn ... ah, light is dawning on him ... you see it illuminating his face as he bends over the board, you hear a murmur of revelation issuing from his lips ... he is drawing back from the precipice ... your ambuscade is in vain and now you must start plotting and scheming all ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... credited, that Bragg has led the enemy, in Kentucky, into an ambuscade, and slaughtered 25,000. A traveler from the West reports having read an account to this effect in the Louisville Journal. If the Journal really says so—that number won't cover the loss. The Abolitionist journals are incorrigible liars. And, indeed, so are many of those who bring ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... resumed their march, the militia forming in single file, each one walking by the side of an emigrant, and carrying his musket on the left arm. As soon as the women were close to the ambuscade, Higbee, who was in charge of the detachment, gave a signal, which had evidently been prearranged, by saying to his command, "Do your duty"; and the horrible butchery commenced. Most of the men were shot down at the first fire. Three only escaped from the valley; of these, two were quickly run ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... but a still more engaging one as an occurrence in the path of discovery. Here was most unexpectedly brought to view a new link in the chain of our story. It was a pleasant surprise to have such a fact as this breaking upon us from an ambuscade, to help out a half-formed narrative which I had feared was hopeless of completion. The inscription is a necessary supplement to the marginal notes. As an insulated monument, it is meagre in its detail, and stands in need of explanation. It does not describe Christopher Rousby as the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... the battlements. "The art military of the Homeric age is upon a level with the state of navigation just described, personal prowess decided every thing; the night attack and the ambuscade, although much esteemed, were never upon a large scale. The chiefs fight in advance, and enact almost as much as the knights of romance. The siege of Troy was as little like a modern siege as a captain in the guards is like Achilles. There is no mention of a ditch or any other line ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... and made five hours only, because to-morrow there is no herbage until late in the evening. How tantalising to be obliged to advance thus by short stages towards an ambuscade! We take things pretty philosophically, however, and make geological observations. Overweg (who begins to show signs of weakness) is delighted that we have at length reached a region of granite. I think I must have passed ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... the division of spoils after an ambuscade, and the twilight exploitation of the barriers of Paris, footpads, burglars, and gaol-birds generally have another industry: they have ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... favorites naturally followed his example, and shared the popular disfavor; in 1576, the Parisians began to designate them as mignons du roi. Their worthy master, whenever it arrived to one of them to be killed in duel or ambuscade, contented himself with giving him a fine tomb and a marble statue in the church of Saint-Paul, hence called "the seraglio of the mignons," so that, says De Thou, "the usual threat against one of ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... that impulsion of essentially modern origin, which sets the lower classes marching through the social system. And thus the dramas of their individual lives recount the story of the Second Empire, from the ambuscade of the Coup d'Etat to the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... Chine a world-wide fame. It was here that a party of French under the Chevalier d'Eulx landed in 1545 to get some fresh water. The process was tedious, the stream being so small, and the chevalier and some of his party, wandering inland, were caught in an ambuscade. He and most of the others were killed, though they defended themselves bravely. South of Shanklin the chalk-cliffs are bold and lofty, and off these pretty shores the "Eurydice" was lost in a squall, March 24, 1878, when returning from ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... Crows put up a good fight, and managed to squirm away from the gagging boxing-gloves and let out a yelp; but the heavy door of the gymnasium kept the secret mum, and there was something so surprising about the ambuscade in the dark that the Dozen soon had the half-dozen securely gagged and fettered. Then they were toted like meal-bags up the stairs of the chapel, and on up and up into the loft, and into the bell-tower. There they were laid out on the ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... ambuscade to go to bed, and twice Curiosity, or Something, drew her back. At last, having looked, peered, and peeped, till her feet were cold, and her face the reverse, she informed herself that the foolish Thing had ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... once with valor true The attack from an ambuscade, In moral strife, or bloody war, Hath many ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... firmer, her mind more tranquil, and her resignation more confirmed. She understood the reasoning of June, and believed it highly probable that the blockhouse would be left unmolested until the return of her father, in order to entice him into an ambuscade, and she felt much less apprehension of immediate danger in consequence; but the future offered little ground of hope, and her thoughts had already begun to calculate the chances of her captivity. At such moments, Arrowhead and his offensive ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... land, but the young officer's theory was that, if the Nicaraguans meant to fight, they would place an ambush in the dense jungle along the river, and from this place of concealment harass the flotilla before it got within gunshot of the fort. This ambuscade could easily fall back upon the fort if directly attacked and defeated. This, the young man argued was what he himself would have done had he been in command of the Nicaraguan forces, so it naturally occurred to him to discover whether the same ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... so in places not to their advantage. Thus the path was cleared, upon this day, without encountering any enemy or sighting their fort. Again the men returned to the fleet for the night. On the third day, as the work of reconnoitering was proceeding, a large ambuscade of Indians attacked us in the open near a palm-grove. As was learned later, they numbered about two thousand. They attacked us with the greatest fury and determination, in small bodies of skilful troops. As the soldiers were ordered immediately to form their square, when the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... capture the ferocious beast, without getting in his way or coming nearer to him than a hundred yards. All was in vain. The bear vanished in the forest like a flying shadow; and, presuming from his known ferocity and vindictiveness that he had prepared an ambuscade for us in the woods, we deemed it the better part of valour to abandon the pursuit. Upon comparing notes, we found that we had all been similarly impressed with his enormous size, his shagginess, and his generally savage appearance, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... Fitzpatrick and I stepped lightly, so as not to leave much mark, on some dried grass, and made off up the side of the draw, among the bushes. These grew as high as our shoulders, and formed a fine ambuscade. We climbed far enough so that we could see both sides of the draw and the trail in between; and by crawling we picked a ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... Sampiero was slain in an ambuscade laid for him in the defile of Cauro, into which he had been led by forged letters brought him by the monk Ambrosius ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black

... they ford The hostile stream. The endless earth below, The boundless sky above, they know no day Of their return. Their breasts are ever bared To the pitiless steel and all the wounds of war Unspeakable. Methinks I see them now, Dust-mantled in the bitter wind, a host Of Tartar warriors in ambuscade. Our leader scorns the foe. He would give battle Upon the threshold of the camp. The stream Besets a grim array where order reigns, Though many hearts may beat, where discipline Is all, and life of no account. The spear Now works its iron will, ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng

... was the chance of the sea, and the ill reward of a humane action—a melancholy end for such a man—like the end of a warrior, not dying Epaminondas-like on the field of victory, but cut off in some poor brawl or ambuscade. But so it was with all these men. They were cut off in the flower of their days, and few of them laid their bones in the sepulchres of their fathers. They knew the service which they had chosen, and they did not ask the wages for which they had not laboured. Life ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... been a soldier in one of the South Carolina regiments. These stood to their ranks, so well, and appeared to be so resolute, that Gen. Marion did not wish to expose his men, by an attack on equal terms; he therefore feigned a retreat, and led them into an ambuscade, near the Blue Savannah, where they were defeated. This was the first manoeuvre of the kind, for which ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... complaints. "For my part," says an elegant writer, "when I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes." Let it be therefore laid down as a rule by those who wish to preserve their health, and I have nothing to say to those who are indifferent on that head, to make their chief repast on one plain dish, and ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.

... ordered by the senate is commonly called supplicatio, and was a sign that the general was likely to be honoured with a triumph. [309] Necubi for ne alicubi, 'in order that not somewhere.' See Zumpt, S 136. [310] Post insidias Jugurthae, 'after he had once experienced attacks made from an ambuscade.' ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)

... and his followers, upon landing, sat down upon the beach for breakfast; but their repast was rudely disturbed by a shower of stones from an ambuscade of Typees in the edge of the wood. Stopping but a moment to finish their food, the jackies picked up their cutlasses and muskets, and started for the enemy. They were soon in the shady recesses of the tropical forest, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... full of excitement. He saw the English running into an ambuscade, and he determined, even if it should cost him his life, to warn them. Presently they heard the sharp puffs of the steam launch. The boats were ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... you do not fear those who can kill the body; but I sometimes fear that some of you are not enough afraid of that enemy worst of all, who can kill the soul too. And who is that? St. Paul tells us. He is "the devil, who has the power of death," who lies in ambuscade to destroy your body and soul in hell; and will and can do it; but only if you let him. Now who is the devil? It is worth your while to know; for many a man may be, as you are, in the ranks of God's ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... virgin imparted to her father the dangerous project, and John, who might have known the value of oaths and promises, was tempted to accept a nocturnal, and almost treasonable, interview with the wife of Belisarius. An ambuscade of guards and eunuchs had been posted by the command of Theodora; they rushed with drawn swords to seize or to punish the guilty minister: he was saved by the fidelity of his attendants; but instead of appealing to a gracious sovereign, who had privately warned ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... what he wants her to reveal; for this would generally induce her to shut for ever the door of the fortress against him. After the first steps of advance, he is advised to make several steps back, and to put himself in a kind of spiritual ambuscade, to see the effect of his first advance. If there is any prospect of success, then the word "March on!" is given, and a more advanced post of the citadel must be tried and stormed if possible. In that way, little by little, the whole place is ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... and wrested that province from the power of the sultan. The victorious soldier, however, now plotted against his master and took the lead in a military revolt. As a result of this, Ali Bey fell into an ambuscade set by his own rebellious subjects, and died from poisoning m 1786. Thus terminated the career of the famous Mamluk, a man whose energy, talents, and ambition bear a strong resemblance to those ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... forgotten Sergeant Velasquez, captain," said the latter. "He escaped the ambuscade in which you were taken prisoner. You see I've got the epaulet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... bombardment or an earthquake. He had chosen Coombes for chief attorney, and thinking of that made him feel better. Mohammed Ali O'Brien was neither tall, elegant nor calm. His skin was almost black—he'd been born on Agni, under a hot B3 sun. His bald head glistened, and a big nose peeped over the ambuscade of a bushy white mustache. What was it they said about him? Only man on Zarathustra who could strut sitting down. And behind them, the remnant of the expedition to Beta Continent—Ernst Mallin, Juan Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris. Mallin ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... to be Christmas trees, grew thinly among loose stones and gravel scaurs. Here and there a big boulder sat quiescent on a knoll, having paused there till the next rain in his long slide down the mountain. There was here no ambuscade for the snakes, you could see clearly where you trod; and yet the higher I went, the more abject and appealing became Chuchu's terror. He was an excellent master of that composite language in which dogs communicate with men, and he would assure me, on his honour, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the main disastrous to our forces, due in part to the courage, skill, and superior numbers of the Navajos and in part to the character of the country, which is easily defended, as the routes of travel along the canyons present excellent opportunities for defense and ambuscade. But under the leadership and by the advice of Kit Carson these Indians were ultimately conquered. This wily but brave frontiersman recommended a new method of warfare, which was to destroy the herds and flocks of the Navajos; and this course was pursued. Regular troops with volunteers ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... afford every facility for such an unpleasant interruption. At first it winded apart from the lake through marshy meadow ground, overgrown with copsewood, now traversing dark and close thickets which would have admitted an ambuscade to be sheltered within a few yards of our line of march, and frequently crossing rough mountain torrents, some of which took the soldiers up to the knees, and ran with such violence, that their force could only be stemmed by the strength ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... shrinking, Drive what may through darksome smother; Saturate, but never sinking, Fatal only to the other! Deadlier than the sunken reef Since still the snare it shifteth, Torpid in dumb ambuscade Waylayingly it drifteth. ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... more desperate than others, A pair of ragamuffin brothers In secret ambuscade join'd forces, To carry on unlawful courses. These Robbers' names, enough to shake us, Where, Strymon one, the other Cacus. And, more the neighbourhood to bother, A wicked dam they had for mother, Who knew their craft, but ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... what terrors may consort In women's cheeks, the Graces' soft resort; My hand hath shook at gentle hands' access, And trembled at the waving of a tress; My blood known panic fear, and fled dismayed, Where ladies' eyes have set their ambuscade. The rustle of a robe hath been to me The very rattle of love's musketry; Although my heart hath beat the loud advance, I have recoiled before a challenging glance, Proved gay alarms where warlike ribbons dance. And from it all, this knowledge have I got, - The whole that others have, is less ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson

... unhappy destiny! I, whose long labors have gained such great renown—I, whom hitherto everywhere victory has followed—I see myself to-day, in consequence of having lived too long, receiving an insult, and living vanquished. That which never battle, siege, or ambuscade could [do]—that which Arragon or Granada never could [effect], nor all your enemies, nor all my jealous [rivals], the Count has done in your palace, almost before your eyes, [being] jealous of your choice, ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille

... still hovered around in such energetic and persevering hostility, that not a trapper could leave the camp without danger of falling into an ambuscade. The Indians avoided any decisive conflict, but their war-whoops and yells of defiance, like the howlings of wolves, could be heard, by day and by night, in the forests all around them. Unless the traps were carefully guarded, they ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... trouble sleeps; I hear no sound of aught that weeps; I will not look into thy deeps— I am afraid, I am afraid!" "Afraid!" she saith; "and yet 'tis true That what man dreads he still should view— Should do the thing he fears to do, And storm the ghosts in ambuscade." ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... Flinging himself out the saddle he raced after his man, taking the rough trail leading up the slope in swift strides. On foot Sorenson was no match for him. But the latter had the start; he was now almost within reach of the thick screen of bushes; and he bent every energy to make the ambuscade. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... attack them with three regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and two nine-pounders. He thought he should surprise them, and contrived so that he should come upon them about daybreak. Sheo Ratan knew all his plans. He placed one hundred and fifty of his men in ambuscade at the entrance to the jungle, and kept the other hundred and fifty by him in the centre. When they had got well in, the party in ambush rushed upon the rear, while he attacked them in front. After a short resistance, Ghulam Husain's force ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... the men out from behind the stockade, while the remainder were concealed in ambush near the spring with which the garrison was supplied with water. The most experienced of the defenders understood the tactics of their wily foes, and shrewdly guessed that an ambuscade had been prepared in order to cut off the garrison from access to the spring. The water in the station was already exhausted, and unless a fresh supply could be obtained the most dreadful sufferings were apprehended. It was ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... together mated, Watch and wait in ambuscade; At early morn, or else belated, They meet and mark the ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... thousands of their best fighting men might have remained to strike one terrible blow at the troops who in open fight had shown themselves their superiors, and had driven them from position after position that they believed impregnable. However, as one after another of the spots where an ambuscade would be likely to be laid passed, and there were still no signs of the enemy, the keenness of the watch began to abate, and the set expression of the faces to relax. Then as the hills receded and the valley ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty

... attractions for Baden-Powell, and if he had not been locked up in Mafeking all through those precious months at the beginning of the war, it is no idle guesswork to say that we should have lost fewer men and fewer guns by surprise and ambuscade. ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... fort of Ville-Marie, in order to lay siege to it. They knew beforehand that French arms and gunpowder were rather formidable opponents, especially if they should happen to meet another de Maisonneuve, and, as usual, had recourse to concealment. They formed their ambuscade in a ditch which they dug on the very ground that now forms the garden of the Congregation convent. There they lay hid, reconnoitering the strength of the place, and having matured their plans, commenced hurlling stones and shooting poisoned arrows against the fort, which contained only the small ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... can perceive no vestiges of a disregard to right and wrong, which is the fault some people find with the laws of Lycurgus, allowing them well enough calculated to produce valour, but not to promote justice. Perhaps it was the Cryptia, as they called it, or ambuscade, if that was really one of this lawgiver's institutions, as Aristotle says it was, which gave Plato so bad an impression both of Lycurgus and his laws. The governors of the youth ordered the shrewdest ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... whirlpool of the winds. Each separate chasm in the encircling hills was a mouth to discharge a separate blast. The winds swept down into the hollow and charged in a riotous combat about the squares and lanes; at each corner was an ambuscade, and everywhere they clashed with artilleries ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... reconnaissance near Lucknow, which I had undertaken with my regimental staff and a small escort, my own carelessness led us into an ambuscade set by the English, which cost most of my companions their lives. At the beginning of the encounter a shot in the back had unhorsed me. I was taken for dead, and those few of my companions who were able to save themselves by flight had no time to ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... and the North Sea pay a toll of populous ships. And when the universal music has led lovers into the paths of dalliance, confident of Nature's sympathy, suddenly the air shifts into a minor, and death makes a clutch from his ambuscade below the bed of marriage. For death is given in a kiss; the dearest kindnesses are fatal; and into this life, where one thing preys upon another, the child too often makes its entrance from the mother's corpse. It is no wonder, with so traitorous a scheme of things, if ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... partic'lars, but in some they ain't, Dan'l; f'r instance, they don't caw like a crow, and don't try to ambuscade folks, and they give you warning afore they strike, which is more ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... his ambuscade with discretion. With a closed carriage and a band of chosen ruffians he had left the palace a good half-hour before the king's messengers, and by the aid of his sister's gold he had managed that their journey should not be a very rapid one. On reaching the branch road ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... made of sterner stuff. The fact is, perhaps, never more happily exemplified than in this very story of the dying Braddock himself. As he was carried away, bleeding, to his death, from that fatal ambuscade, something of the hero animated and exalted {287} the spirit of that drink-hardy and foolhardy soldier. "I must do better another time," he is reported to have said; and it would not be easy to say with what gallanter ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... rallied far in rear. The whole affair was a mistake on the part of the commander. His troops had been heedlessly pushed forward, and General Longstreet, commanding the opposing brigade, by carefully concealing his infantry, had drawn him into an ambuscade. The results of the action were not without importance. The Federals fell back with a loss of 83 officers and men, and the Confederates were much elated at their easy success. Among some of the Northerners, on the other hand, the sudden check to the advance, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... intended to place his men in ambuscade at the ford, but, owing to various delays caused by the Indians, he was still a mile away from the ford when the British crossed. He was marching forward when he came suddenly upon the little party of guides and Virginian light horsemen. These at once fell back. The Indians ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... to return from the donjon, than D'Artagnan placed himself in ambuscade close to the Rue du Petit-Muse, so as to see every one who might leave the gates of the Bastille. After he had spent an hour on the look-out from the "Golden Portcullis," under the pent-house of which he could keep himself a little in the shade, D'Artagnan ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... the most revolting cruelties on the Spanish inhabitants. One example of this monster's inhuman deeds will more than suffice to tell of. It happened that during an attack on the town of San Pedros the buccaneers had been caught in an ambuscade and many of them killed, although the Spaniards had at last turned and fled. The pirates killed most of their prisoners, but kept a few to be questioned by L'Ollonais so as to find some other way to the town. ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... era of agony that minute, in which, after avoiding the ambuscade that he felt sure awaited him at the door, he had nothing on earth he could do but wait and see what was ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... order, in the early gray of the morning, the two men directly in his rear, forgetting their orders, suddenly called out, 'Colonel, the British!' faced about, and putting spurs to their horses, were soon out of sight. The colonel, looking around, discovered that he was in the centre of a powerful ambuscade, into which the enemy had silently allowed him to pass, without his observing them. They lined both sides of the road, and had been stationed there to pick up any straggling party of the Americans that might ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... truth was mad, and he could not, therefore, answer this tirade by an assurance that no such idea was likely to prevail. "Have they told you, I wonder," continued Trevelyan, "how it was that, driven to force and an ambuscade for the recovery of my own child, I waylaid my wife and took him from her? I have done nothing to forfeit my right as a man to the control of my own family. I demanded that the boy should be sent to ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... did not think long over the best way quickly to awaken the love of the page, and had soon discovered the natural ambuscade in the which the most wary are taken. This is how: at the warmest hour of the day the good man took his siesta after the Saracen fashion, a habit in which he had never failed, since his return from the Holy ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... suddenly seized with as strong a desire for active life, as he formerly possessed for easy rest, and he felt himself in no safety except when at a distance from the mansion, for he knew that Ragnar possessed too much honor to entrap him in an ambuscade. ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen

... know that his comrades of the garrison of Sainte Menehould had not forgotten their ambuscade, and ever since midnight had been collected near the gibbet, to save their friend, although he was not overwise, and also to capture prisoners and whatever else they could. When they arrived they took ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... Waugh's vaqueros while the latter were dressing a wild hog which they had killed. The Mexicans had only one horse and one gun between them. One of them took the horse and the other took the carbine. Not daring to follow the one with the gun for fear of ambuscade, the Indians gave chase to the vaquero on horseback, whom they easily captured. After stripping him of all his clothing, they tied his hands with thongs, and pinned the poor devil to a tree with spear thrusts ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... against the Ealdorman Elfhelm, which he carefully concealed. He invited that unfortunate lord to a banquet at Shrewsbury, where he welcomed him as his intimate friend. On the third or fourth day of the feast he took him to hunt in a wood where he had prepared an ambuscade, and while all the rest were engaged in the chase, the common hangman of Shrewsbury, one Godwin "port hund," or the town's hound, bribed by Edric to commit the crime, sprang from behind a bush, and foully assassinated the innocent ealdorman. Not to be behind his favourite ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... the acquaintance of an odd character—a young fellow who in turns betrayed both royalists and republicans. My relations with him recall a somewhat droll occurrence. I found that he was guiding the regiment I commanded into an ambuscade of the insurgents, and I ordered him to be hung to the first tree we should meet with. Fortunately for him my men translated the order in its most literal sense; and being at the time in the middle of vast savannahs entirely destitute of trees, the execution was held over, as it was ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... cry of—Avast! or stop firing; and I think one or two guns had been let off, but happily they did no mischief. We had hailed them several times; but they not hearing, we received no answer, which was the cause of our firing. The boat was then sent on board of her, and she proved to be the Ambuscade man of war, to my no small disappointment. We returned to Portsmouth, without having been in any action, just at the trial of Admiral Byng (whom I saw several times during it): and my master having left the ship, and gone to London for promotion, Dick and I were put on board ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... mine. The horses they bestrode were large and powerful animals. There was something in the moody silence and even rigid bearing of these persons, which inspired me with a feeling rather of awe than suspicion. It might be that they were retainers of the duke; but then, if any ambuscade or foul play was intended, why give such palpable warning of it? I resolved to ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... Stray Indians put themselves in touch again with the band by turkey calls in the daytime and by owl or wolf notes at night. The frontiersmen used the same means to trick the Indian band into betraying the place of its ambuscade, or to lure the strays, unwitting, ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... A dark wave of men rushed from the ambuscade, surged up round the car, ... swept forward.... She had disappeared, and, as Philammon followed breathless, the horses galloped past him madly ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... reposing confidence in them, to the extent even of letting them carry his carbine. He and his men had slept in the village one night, and on the following day some of the tribe joined the party as guides, but led them into the ambuscade, where the gallant WITTI and many of his men were killed by sumpitans.[28] So far as we have been able to ascertain the sole reason for the attack was the fact that WITTI had come to the district from a tribe with whom these people were at war, and he was, therefore, according to native custom, ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... hundred feet in diameter, rises to the surface. Its front is carved in elaborate tracery and crusted with serpulae, looking like the fret-and flower-work that covers Saracenic architecture. Looking through this into the violet ambuscade, the eye falls upon colonnades, light slender shafts a foot in diameter, that seem to support the paly-golden, lustrous roof. It is curiously like a vast temple, spreading every way in vault and colonnade, on which religious enthusiasm or barbaric royalty has worked with a reckless waste ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... their king, Artabanus, [made a campaign against Hatra, which he endeavored to take as a base for attacking the Romans. He did make a breach in the wall but, as he lost a number of soldiers through an ambuscade, he transferred his position into Media. Of this district, as also of Parthia, he acquired no small portion, partly by force and partly by intimidation, and then] marched against Armenia. Here he suffered ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... every case I have been grievously disappointed. Vague general phrases, founded on a priori reasoning rather than on observation, together with a few statistical tables—which the cautious investigator should avoid as he would an ambuscade—are too often all that is to be found. Through the thin veil of pseudo-erudition the real facts are clear enough. These philosophical legislators, who have spent their lives in the official atmosphere of St. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... and the heavy dews at nightfall. As the sea-breeze and the flood-tide set in, the boats again started and proceeded up the river. It was ascertained the war-canoes were beyond where the Panda was first taken; for fear of an ambuscade great caution was observed in proceeding. "As we approached a point, a single native was observed standing near a hut erected near the river, who, as we approached, beckoned, and called for us to land. We endeavored to do so, but ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... persons pretending to be patriots, he was led to turn aside from the road upon which he marched out into a somewhat narrow clearing in the forest near a small work called Fort Keyser, and was killed nearly two miles from Fort Paris, being attacked on every side in what amounted to an ambuscade. ...
— Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold • Archibald Murray Howe

... faith, and that there would be no merit in believing if the evidence were such as to commend itself at once to our understanding, is one which need only be stated to be set aside. It is blasphemy against the goodness of God to suppose that He has thus laid as it were an ambuscade for man, and will only let him escape on condition of his consenting to violate one of the very most precious of God's own gifts. There is an ingenious cruelty about such conduct which it is revolting even ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... people than our commander was. Before they could form, Joan had delivered the order, "Forward!" and we were down upon them with a rush. They stood no chance; they turned tail and scattered, we plowing through them as if they had been men of straw. That was our last ambuscade, and it was probably laid for us by that treacherous rascal, the King's own minister and ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... in Italian, one of Charlemagne's paladins and nephew is represented as brave, loyal, and simple-minded. On the return of Charlemagne from Spain, Roland, who commanded the rearguard, fell into an ambuscade at Roncezvalles, in the Pyrenees (778), and perished, with the flower of French chivalry. He is the hero of Ariosto's poem, "Orlando Furioso." In this same poem Cant. xii. is also mentioned Ferragus, ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere

... the vicinity, a detachment of marines and seamen was, after dark, pushed through a heavy surf, and landed, in the hope of taking them by surprise. But the enemy was on the alert, and on the following morning our little party fell into an ambuscade, which would have proved serious, had not Major Miller, who commanded the marines, promptly formed his men, who, attacking in turn, soon put the enemy to flight at the point of the bayonet, capturing their colours, and the greater portion of their arms. On the 13th, a detachment of Spanish troops ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... only—to measure ourselves with them. And every time we had seen their squadrons the result had been either that they had turned and retired in good order behind their lines of infantry, or they had drawn us into some ambuscade under the pitiless fire of ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont

... wild and dreary plain, Strewn with plots of thickest jungle, Matted with the gory stain. There the murder-mouthed artillery, In the deadly ambuscade, Wrought the thunder of its treachery On ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... don't you? As soon as night comes on, you shall order fifteen or twenty men, under the command of your sergeant La Place, to be under arms, and to lay themselves flat on the ground, between this place and the head-quarters." "What the devil!" cried Matta, "an ambuscade? God forgive me, I believe you intend to rob the poor Savoyard. If that be your intention, I declare I will have nothing to say to it" "Poor devil!" said the Chevalier, "the matter is this; it is very likely that we shall win his money. The Piedmontese, though otherwise good fellows, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... might imperil Joe Hawkridge and Bonnet's two seamen should they come in haste with a hue-and-cry behind them. Jack paddled the pirogue up the creek and soon found a safe ambuscade, a stagnant cove in among the dense growth, where he tied up to a gnarled root. Then he climbed a wide-branching oak and propped himself in a crotch from which he could see the open water and the two vessels at anchor. Clumps ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... my advance-guard under Lieutenant-Colonel Frizell very cleverly succeeded in drawing into an ambuscade a body of Floyd's cavalry under Colonel A. G. Jenkins. The principal body of our men lined a defile near the Hawk's Nest, and the skirmishers, retreating before the enemy, led them into the trap. Our men began firing before the enemy was quite surrounded, and putting their horses upon ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... enemy, where he knew that they would arrive, laden with booty, and therefore marching with their army the more encumbered, caused their depredation to prove their destruction. Few of the enemy escaped from the ambuscade; all the booty was recovered. Thus the return of the consul Quinctius to the city put an end to the suspension of business, which lasted four days. A census[4] was then held, and the lustrum [Footnote: The ceremony of purification took place every five years, hence ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... of his officers and unfolded to them a desperate plan he had conceived. This was no less than to lay an ambuscade for the Inca and seize him in the face of his army, holding him as a hostage for the safety of the Christians. Nothing less decisive than this would avail them, he said. It was too late to retreat. At the first sign of such a movement the army of the Inca would ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... landing point; the wrong landing point was chosen for the main body; the men fell ill and mutinied; the Spaniards, who might have been surprised at first by a direct assault on St. Domingo, resisted bravely, and poured shot among the troops from ambuscade. Two attempts to get into St. Domingo were both foiled with heavy loss, including the death of Major-General Heane and others of the best officers. The mortality from climate and bad food being also great, the enterprise ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... France and take refuge in Geneva. They assembled one morning secretly, a cavalcade of men and women, and set out under the direction of a guide who knew the mountain paths towards the east. When they had travelled a few hours, they fell into an ambuscade of militia, and were marched back to the archpriest's quarters at Pont-de-Montvert. The women were sent to Mende to be immured in convents, and the men were imprisoned in the archpriest's dungeons. The parents of some of the captives ran to throw themselves at his feet, and implored ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles



Words linked to "Ambuscade" :   surprise attack, wait, coup de main, dry-gulching



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