"Ambuscade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that they may {249} burn the easier, and one of them mounting upon a tree adjoining to that in which the bear is, sets fire to the reeds, and darts them one after another into the breach; the other hunters having planted themselves in ambuscade upon other trees. The bear is quickly burned out of his habitation, and he no sooner appears on the outside, than they let fly their arrows at him, and often kill him before he gets to the bottom ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... quiver which his fathers made; The gun, that filled the warrior's deadliest vow; The mace, the spear, the axe, the ambuscade— Where are ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... sterner business on hand, besides having the first lieutenant in the following boat, so I contented myself with looking straight ahead as far as I could for the maze-like wanderings of the creek, and I was just thinking how easily we could run into an ambuscade, and be shot at from the dense shrubby growth on the bank, when Mr Reardon called to us ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... of the New Cabinet, with Chateauneuf at its head, as a veritable declaration of war, Conde went to Chantilly, and, it is said, had a very narrow escape from falling into an ambuscade which the Court had ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... school of Buckingham and Rochester. He could devote to the capture of a woman all the tireless energy, the strategic skill, the will, the patience, the daring, of a great general. He could mine and countermine, could plan an ambuscade here, and lead a forlorn hope there, could take one intrenchment by storm, and another by treachery. And victory seldom forsook her ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... appearances of flight, Constantine was betrayed into an ambuscade, which had been concealed in a wood, where the rash youth, with a few attendants, was surprised, surrounded, and slain. His body, after it had been found in the obscure stream of the Alsa, obtained the honors of an Imperial sepulchre; but his provinces transferred ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... information or even suspicion that Girty's warriors, concealed behind the trunks of the great trees, were awaiting their coming. Steadily advancing, the horsemen soon were drawing near the place where the ambuscade had ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... 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 ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... to spread trouble among the assailants, by beginning with blowing out Ki-Tsang's brains, if Ki-Tsang is the author of this ambuscade? That would bring matters to ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... 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 floor, and their ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... especially cobras and coralillos, which last by preference inhabit trees, still abound in the forests of Mataran as in days of old, and wage a regular guerilla warfare against the invaders. Woe betide the belated pedestrian, or even horseman, if he happens to pass under a tree which forms the ambuscade of a coralillo snake! Cobras and other reptiles seldom attack men, and will generally try to avoid them, unless accidentally trodden upon, but these guerilleros of the forest, the tree serpents, lie in wait for their victims. As soon as the head of ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... and what contempt had we conceived for them! We had one desire, and one 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
... batteries on both sides were in the hands of the enemy, but they were quickly regained by bayonet charges; and on the north bank Colonel Dudley, after spiking the captured guns, having marched with 400 men to attack the British camp, was drawn into an ambuscade by the Indians, and himself and about half his men were slain. Of the Americans, about 550 men were made prisoners, and their killed and wounded were estimated at nearly as many more. The far-famed Tecumseh buried his tomahawk in the head of a Chippewa chief, whom he found ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... at Frederica, and anxiously awaited reinforcements from Carolina. By turning to account the desertion of a French soldier he precipitated the attack of the Spaniards, and on their march to Frederica they fell into an ambuscade. Great slaughter ensued, and they retreated precipitately. The place of conflict is to this day known as "Bloody Marsh." The Spaniards retreated south along the coast in their vessels, and on their way attacked Fort William, at the southern extremity of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... up, else your feet will stray Towards that dim ambuscade, Where spider-like they catch their prey In ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... during the night, and Sylla was preparing, at sunrise, to pitch his camp, the Moorish cavalry announced that Jugurtha was encamped about two miles in advance. At this report, great dismay fell upon our men; for they believed themselves betrayed by Volux, and led into an ambuscade. Some exclaimed that they ought to take vengeance on him at once, and not suffer such perfidy to ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... 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 ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... men, and have to fight his way back, with the whole country roused. Half the party were then sent back, under the overseer, to conceal themselves in the scrub and allow the natives to pass on in pursuit of the tracks; this ambuscade, however, was scented out by the dogs accompanying the blacks, and the natives halted, poising their spears. One of the men hastily fired, and a retreat was made for the bank of the river by the blacks. The scrub party followed them up firing, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... 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
... 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
... intrusted with the ambuscade at the battle of the Monongahela, i. 166; death of, in the battle, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... 'escalade'; 'granada' (Hacket) 'grenade'; 'parada' (J. Taylor) 'parade'; 'emboscado' (Holland) 'stoccado', 'barricado', 'renegado', 'hurricano' (all in Shakespeare), 'brocado' (Hackluyt), 'palissado' (Howell), drop their foreign terminations, and severally become 'ambuscade', 'stockade', 'barricade', 'renegade', 'hurricane', 'brocade', 'palisade'; 'croisado' in like manner (Bacon) becomes first 'croisade' (Jortin), and then 'crusade'; 'quinaquina' or 'quinquina', 'quinine'. Other slight modifications of spelling, not in the termination, but ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... Washington, aide-de-camp of General Lee, was killed, while making a reconnaissance, by a party in ambuscade. The loss of this valuable and accomplished officer was much regretted by his general and ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... expelled. The violence of Duke Charles, in the one country, was scarcely more to be feared than the cold and tyrannical policy of King Louis in the other. After deep thought, Durward could form no better or safer plan for their security, than that, evading the ambuscade, they should take the road to Liege by the left hand of the Maes, and throw themselves, as the ladies originally designed, upon the protection of the excellent Bishop. That Prelate's will to protect them could not be doubted, and, if reinforced ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... wounded youths and Bailie Ross's servant were taken prisoners, and carried up the hill, where they were quickly divested of clothes, arms, money, and papers. Easterfearn's son died next morning. The troops faced the ambuscade manfully and are said to have given their fire thrice, and to have beaten the Highlanders from the bushes near them; but, observing at this juncture several parties of the enemy on the neighbouring heights, and being informed of a party of sixty in their rear, Easterfearn deemed ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... with what a magic spell—those years of youth when I was soldiering! Again I hear 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 or sullen ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... three divisions on the causeways, while at the same moment troops from the neighboring towns attacked their camps in the rear. He did not content himself with open attacks, but resorted to stratagem. On one occasion he had a large number of canoes in ambuscade, among some tall reeds bordering the lake. Several large boats then rowed near the Spanish vessels. Believing that they were filled with provisions intended for the city, two of the smaller vessels pursued them. The Aztec boats made for the reeds, the Spaniards followed, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... Friedrich's offers are precisely what they were, what they have always been: "Convention of Hanover; that, in all its parts; old treaty of Breslau, to be guaranteed, to be actually kept. To me Silesia sure;—from you, Polish Majesty, one million crowns as damages for the trouble and cost this Triple Ambuscade of yours has given me; one million crowns, 150,000 pounds we will say; and all other requisitions to cease on the day of signature. These are my terms: accept these; then wholly, As you were, Empress-Queen and you, and all surviving creatures: and I march home ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... contributed. In any case, security was certainly insecure with such a fort as Lychnidus untaken in their rear. The garrison of that fort had been reinforced by many cohorts of the regular army who had flocked thither at the general's signal, and with these Sabinianus prepared a formidable ambuscade. He sent a considerable number of infantry round by unfrequented paths over the mountains, and ordered them to take up a commanding but concealed position, and to rush forth from thence at a given signal. He himself started with ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... employ him as a tool, just as Cortes had done with Montezuma. He therefore took advantage of the honesty and simplicity of Atahualpa, who placed entire confidence in Pizarro's protestations of friendship and so was thrown off his guard, to arrange an ambuscade into which Atahualpa was certain to fall. There was not a scruple in the disloyal soul of the conqueror; he was as cool as though he were about to offer battle to enemies who had been forewarned of his approach; ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... I?" she muttered. Still for some moments she continued to look about her in a dazed way; at length she recognised the old woman, and the cottage. Then she remembered, with a moan, what had happened—the ambuscade, the ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... 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. Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal but man keeps to one dish. Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and flesh of a third. Man falls upon everything that comes in his way; not ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... discouraging tone of his voice, it seemed joyful to those crouching in concealment; and, yielding to an instinct that they were now saved by the presence of a stanch protector, they rushed from their ambuscade, and in so doing discovered ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... presently seizes the opportunity afforded by a false alarm of impending attack to break up the council. The Latin mothers and maidens offer gifts and litanies to Pallas. Turnus arms for battle (337-576). Camilla and Messapus command the Latin horse; Turnus prepares an ambuscade (577-612). Diana tells the story of Camilla and charges Opis, one of her nymphs, to avenge her should she fall (613-684). Opis watches the battle before the city of Latinus (685-738). The deeds and death of Camilla are recounted: ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... accomplishes this by means of a pitfall, covered with branches and palm-leaves; at other times, he places himself in ambuscade, either before twilight or in the early morning, and shoots the unsuspecting animal as it approaches on ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... they would reach Kwisa without further molestation. However, in mounting a steep rise, after crossing a river, a heavy fire was suddenly opened on them; and they had their first experience of the nature of the ground chosen by the enemy for an ambuscade. ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... in so much shade, That they may more successful rise, Starting from such soft ambuscade, To catch and ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... of combat lay By the tomb's self; how he sprang from ambuscade- Captured Death, caught him in that pair of ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... great quantity of parakeets, monkeys, and little dogs." His courtiers and 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 these favorites was: 'I will have him carved ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... Dwarf pines, not big enough 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... past eleven o'clock when we formed our little ambuscade. Hopkins was for leaving the door of the hut open, but Holmes was of the opinion that this would rouse the suspicions of the stranger. The lock was a perfectly simple one, and only a strong blade was needed to push it back. Holmes also ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Amaury the traitor wants; he goes to Charlot and proposes an ambuscade to lie in wait for the two boys and get rid of them; his real purpose being to get rid of the king's son as well as ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... that these shots were the first fired in anger for a hundred and fifty years. He heard bullets whacking over his head, felt a splash of molten metal sting his ear, and perceived without looking that the whole opposite facade, an unmasked ambuscade of red police, was crowded and bawling ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... 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, and in its ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... spreading false intelligence in newspapers; by sending pretended spies and deserters to give him untrue reports of the numbers or movements of the troops; by employing false signals to lure him into an ambuscade. On the use of the flag and uniform of an enemy for purposes of deception there has been some controversy, but it is supported by high military authority.[29] The use of spies is fully authorised, but the spy, if discovered, ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... the field with his colleague, and harassed Hannibal much in the country between the towns of Bantia and Venusia. Hannibal declined battle, but, learning that a force was detached from the Roman army to attack the Epizephyrian Lokrians, he laid an ambuscade on the mountain near Petelia, and defeated them with a loss of two thousand five hundred men. This excited Marcellus, and he led his forces nearer to those of Hannibal. There was between the two camps ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... arranging his troops about 11.00 A.M., and passing from one column to another, incautiously rode upon an ambuscade without apprehension, at some distance ahead of his staff and orderlies, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... 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
... you are telling me, boy," remarked the captain. "How is it you know there is an ambuscade ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... difference; it 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 with them was ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... bad comrades," said the other amicably. "In '53, when I was with Lopez in Cuba, I had a little black mare that was just as well worth dying for as a woman or a man or most causes, but, damn me! she died for me—carried me past a murderous ambuscade, got a bullet for her pains, and never dropped until she reached our camp!" He coughed. "What pleasant weather! Was it difficult ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... before I die; for it is the young warrior, whom, years ago, I saw shielded from our bullets by the hand of the Great Spirit. Let the pale-faces hear my words. Fifteen summers ago, when the woods and thickets were dense and green, the French and Indians went out to lay in ambuscade for the big English general, among the Monongahela hills. I took my warriors, and went along, and we lay in wait together. The English were many and strong; we were few and weak: thus we had no thought of victory in our minds, but only to give our enemies a little trouble, and keep ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... case learned of Herkimer's advance and sent the savages under his command to intercept and ambuscade him. A terrible hand-to-hand combat ensued in which a hundred and sixty of the colonists were killed and the loss to the Indians was as great. General Herkimer's horse was shot under him and he himself wounded ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... courtyard smoking, looking sometimes on the solemn front of the old palatial mansion, and sometimes breathing a white film up to the stars, impatient, like the enamoured Aladdin, watching in ambuscade for the emergence of the Princess Badroulbadour. But honest Mark forgot that young ladies do not always come out quite alone, and jump unassisted into their vehicles. And in fact not only did Lord Chelford ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... to the proper 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 on Hispaniola was then abandoned; but, dreading ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... was that our farewells were smuggled through under an ambuscade of laughter, and the parting over ere I knew it was begun. The figures vanished, the steps died away along the silent city front; on board, the men had returned to their labours, the captain to his solitary ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... team into a run, and they had just begun to hope the ambuscade had been passed, when three more Boers sprang out of the willows nearly opposite them ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... Toulouse. For his services at the last place he received a gold medal and the rank of major, March 3rd, 1814. During these campaigns he was never wounded, although exposed to great danger. One morning, among others, his old servant had scarcely reached the skirts of a forest in which the enemy had an ambuscade than his master's horse was killed by a ball, and the rider overthrown. The servant thought it was all over with his master, but the sad thought had hardly entered his mind when Beckwith sprang up and cried out, "All right, John," and by a quick movement escaped ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... 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, but not a Typee was to be seen. That the enemy was there, however, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... results. On the 18th of September, Colonel Sibley determined to move upon the enemy, and on that day camp was broken at the fort, a boat constructed, and a crossing of the Minnesota river effected near the fort, to prevent the possibility of an ambuscade. Colonel Sibley's force consisted of the Sixth Regiment under Colonel Crooks, about three hundred men of the Third under Major Welch, several companies of the Seventh under Col. William R. Marshall, a small number of mounted men under Colonel ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... Creek. While on their way thither, they were attacked by a body of Indians, and defeated with considerable loss. These are all the details of this action we have been able to find. Colonel Floyd collected twenty-five men to pursue the Indians, but in spite of all his caution, fell into an ambuscade, which was estimated to consist of two hundred warriors. Half of Colonel Floyd's men were killed, and the survivors supposed that they had slain nine or ten of the Indians. This, however, is not probable; either the number ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... the back. Montoni arrested his half-extended arm, and, with a significant look, made him return the poinard into his bosom, unseen by all except himself; for most of the party were disputing at a distant window, on the situation of a dell where they meant to form an ambuscade. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... their head. One of them—an old friend—reined in long enough to tell me they were off to lie in wait for a small British patrol, which, a native had told them, daily passed a certain spot suitable for an ambuscade. ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... continued always calling out, but not too loudly, that those who wanted my cape and blade would have to get them with some trouble. Then I quickened pace, while they still followed slowly at my heels; this augmented my fear, for I thought I might be falling into an ambuscade, which would have cut me off in front as well as rear. Accordingly, when I was at the distance of a hundred paces from my home, I ran with all my might, and shouted at the top of my voice: "To arms, to arms! out with you, out with you! I am being murdered." In a moment four of my ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... every way a big man," said the Doctor. "On the whole, he's about our biggest man. An officer who came out of the ambuscade at Fort Duquesne with thirty living men out of three companies and four shot holes in his coat must have an engagement with Destiny. Evidently his work was not finished. You have traveled about some. What is the ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... get glimpses of the old trap of a feigned flight and ambuscade, into which they fell, and so again lose "possession of the place of death," the ultimate test of victory. "This year," says the Saxon Chronicle, "nine general battles were fought against the army in the kingdom south of the Thames; besides which Alfred, the king's brother, and single aldermen ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... Franklin's and Washington's sage hints touching savage modes of warfare. The consequence was this brave Briton's defeat and death. As he drew near to Fort Du Quesne, he fell into a carefully prepared ambuscade. Four horses were shot under him. Mounting a fifth he spurred to the front to inspire his men, forbidding them seek the slightest cover, as Washington urged and as the provincials successfully did. The regulars, obeying, were half of them killed in their tracks, the remainder retreating, ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... were the utterings of the cooing dove, Who did approve In myrtle ambuscade this tender lore; The constant plashing of the fountain spray Melted in easy numbers, dying away A quiet cadence, while for evermore Faded the eve in richest livery wove Of Tyrian dyes and amber woof t'allure The soft salaam ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... others—stimulated by a more eager 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 ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... of an ambuscade?" exclaimed Fred, who began to entertain an opinion that the lieutenant was not well posted on ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... from her as improbable. She did not credit him with so much acumen. And from his absence her courage gained strength. If it could only be prolonged until Ahmed reached her. That the Sheik would come she knew, her faith in him was unbounded. If he only came in time! Hours had passed since the ambuscade had surprised them. It had been early afternoon then. Now the lighted lamp told her it was night. How late she did not know. Her watch had been broken some months before, and she had no means of even guessing the hour, but it must be well on ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... coffins (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 ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... and Belleville next Saturday, carrying fifty thousand francs of government money to the monks of Saint-Bernard; to which I may add that there is between those two places a spot called the Maison-Blanche, which seems to me admirably adapted for an ambuscade." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... his energetic and hardy temperament would not permit him to turn back without a blow being struck. However one may commend his energy, one cannot but stand aghast at his dispositions. The country was wild and rocky, the very places for those tactics of the surprise and the ambuscade in which the Boers excelled. And yet the column still plodded aimlessly on in its dense formation, and if there were any attempt at scouting ahead and on the flanks the result showed how ineffectively it was carried out. It was ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... might have said was cut short by the furious outburst of firing from the guns, which dropped shell after shell into the projected ambuscade. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... 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 ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... disguise accused his own self; he further promised, if the centurion would accompany him, to deliver the robber to him. So, pretending that he was leading him to Felix (this was another name of the chief), he brought him to a hill-encompassed spot, suitable for ambuscade, and easily seized him. Later he assumed the garb of a magistrate, ascended the tribunal, and having called the centurion caused his head to be shaved, and said: "Take this message to your masters: 'Feed your slaves, if you want to make an end of ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... by Heav'n decreed our last: For, when the fatal horse, descending down, Pregnant with arms, o'erwhelm'd th' unhappy town She feign'd nocturnal orgies; left my bed, And, mix'd with Trojan dames, the dances led Then, waving high her torch, the signal made, Which rous'd the Grecians from their ambuscade. With watching overworn, with cares oppress'd, Unhappy I had laid me down to rest, And heavy sleep my weary limbs possess'd. Meantime my worthy wife our arms mislaid, And from beneath my head my sword convey'd; The door ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... new experience for the scouts to find the quarry gone when they reached the place where they expected to find him. Pilar's own scouts had found that the ambuscade was destined to fail of its purpose, and the wily leader drew back into the more accessible country. The scouting party did not come in sight of the little brown soldiers. The occasional crack of a Mauser broke the silence ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... deadly and ubiquitous—the terror of the colonies. It was he who had stirred up the Indians to do the work. Then come reports of a massacre in some town on the frontier, and with it is coupled a whisper of "Castine!" a fort has been surprised, he is there! Some of Church's men have fallen in an ambuscade; the baron has planned it, and furnished the arms and ammunition by which the deed was consummated! Superstition invests him with imaginary powers; fanaticism exclaims, 'tis he who had taught the savages to believe that we are the ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... having immediately discovered our ambuscade by the howling of one of their dogs, halted and poised their spears; but a man of our party (King) inconsiderately discharging his carabine, they fled as usual to their citadel, the river, pursued and fired upon by the party from the scrub. The firing had no sooner ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... part, once cured an inveterate toothache of three days' duration, prevented the extraction of a carious molendinar, which it was the very end of their formation to achieve, and sent me home minus a guinea.—But hand me that great-coat, Captain, and we will place the instruments in ambuscade, until they are called into action in due time. I should think something will happen—Sir Bingo is a sure ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... charge will produce momentous changes, not only in the future of war, but also in that of international relations. Anything which tends to discount the value of personal bravery and to elevate the tactics of the ambuscade and the sharp-shooting expedition gives, pro tanto, an advantage to the meaner-spirited races of mankind, and places them more or less in a position of mastery over those who hold higher racial traditions. The man who will face ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... war had been confined chiefly to the valley of the Connecticut. But from that moment Philip was like a hungry tiger goaded in confinement, suddenly let loose upon his prey. The destruction of villages and the deadly ambuscade of bodies of men followed each other in quick succession. In the space of sixty days his forces attacked Lancaster, Medfield, Weymouth, Groton, Warwick, Marlboro', Rehoboth, Providence, Chelmsford, Andover and Sudbury. At least one half of the death and desolation of this ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... by one a score of heads with painted faces floated silently out of the spewing rock-mouth. One by one the glistening, bronze-red bodies appertaining thereto emerged from the water, each to take its place in an ambuscade enclosing the stream-crossing of the Indian path in a pocket-like line of crouching figures, with the mouth of the pocket open ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... struggles with teeth and claws for that which gives the largest promise of pleasure to body, mind, or soul, as the individual happens to incline. To Sybarites the race is too short to be fatiguing, and the goal is only an ambuscade for satiety and ennui; to ascetics, the race course stretches to the borders of futurity, but even for them one form of pleasure, spiritual pleasure, lights up eternity. The thing we want, we want; not because of its orthodoxy, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... late! 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 ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... there was a fierce splutter of pistol shots from amongst the bushes, and the grey sank down upon its knees with a sobbing moan, struck mortally in the head. Ezra sprang to his feet and rushed at the ambuscade, while the sergeant, who had been grazed on the cheek by the first volley, jumped from his horse and followed him. Burt and Farintosh met them foot to foot with all the Saxon gallantry which underlies the Saxon brutality. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of concealment]. — N. camouflage; mimicry; hiding place; secret place, secret drawer; recess, hold, holes and corners; closet, crypt, adytum[obs3], abditory[obs3], oubliette. ambush, ambuscade; stalking horse; lurking hole, lurking place; secret path, back stairs; retreat &c. (refuge) 666. screen, cover, shade, blinker; veil, curtain, blind, cloak, cloud. mask, visor, vizor[obs3], disguise, masquerade dress, domino. pitfall &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and, according to the just conclusion, be obeyed. On all sides of us we see public and private society broken up, as it were by an earthquake: the noblest and the meanest passions of the human bosom at contention, and the latter often so disguised, that the vile ambuscade is not even suspected till found within the heart of the fortress itself. We have, however, one veritable touchstone, that of the truest observation, "ye shall know a tree by its fruits." Let us look round, then, for those which ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... From his ambuscade he looked out upon the approaching canoe. He was puzzled by the slowness of its progress. At times it seemed to stand still, and he could distinguish no movement at all among its occupants. At first he thought they were undecided as ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... to consider in what manner they should approach the sad and solitary bird, which, unconscious that itself was the object of a formidable ambuscade, stood motionless on a stone, by the brink of the lake, watching for such small fish or water-reptiles as might chance to pass by its lonely station. A brief debate took place betwixt Raoul and the hawk-merchant on the best mode of starting the quarry, so as to allow Lady Eveline and ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... in the 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
... no surprise, No ambuscade of beauty 'gainst mine eyes From brake or lurking dell or deep defile; No humors, frolic forms — this mile, that mile; No rich reserves or happy-valley hopes Beyond the bend of roads, the distant slopes. Her fancy fails, her wild is ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... could not have been more 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 ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... drew near enough to perceive an apparently dead man sitting up in his grave, he gave vent to a hideous roar of horror, turned off at a tangent, and shot away into the bushes. Those in rear, supposing that he had come on an ambuscade, followed his example, and, in another moment, Ali Bobo was left alone to his ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... self-interested advice, were only too 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
... 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. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... 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 their belongings that they could take with them, to three forts which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... must 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 up their position, and put a sentinel in a tree to watch when the Troyes folk should be ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... Indians 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
... preface can atone For crimes which guilty Bayes has singly done— Bayes, whose Rose Alley ambuscade enjoin'd To be to vices, which he ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... little detachment of soldiers venturing on down the valley instead of hurrying back, they had signalled all over the country calling in war-parties to their aid, and formulated their scheme to ambuscade and "corral" it at the narrows of the valley; but Ray's vigilance and plainscraft had defeated that scheme; though they had good chances yet, if they only knew where the regiment had gone. Late the previous evening it had disappeared behind a prominent headland far up a valley farther ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... Reinhold, marched forward, and took possession of the fortress of Exorogorgon. The Sultan Solimaun was on the alert, with a superior force. A party of Crusaders, which had been detached from the fort, and stationed at a little distance as an ambuscade, were surprised and cut to pieces, and Exorogorgon invested on all sides. The siege was protracted for eight days, during which the Christians suffered the most acute agony from the want of water. It is hard to say how long ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... you how you will probably find it, fellows," said Ted. "The Indians ride in different directions. Whenever you hit a trail follow it, but go slow and keep your eyes peeled for an ambuscade. You will find that eventually all the trails will lead to the same place. If we are in luck, we will find them before they go on into the mountains, and we may have a skirmish. I hope, however, that we will be able to settle the matter without resorting to any shooting. Uncle Sam ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... the shield, is a picture of spies at a distance, an ambuscade, and a battle; the scene then changes to ploughing and sowing, and the incidents connected with the gathering of a bountiful harvest; then are introduced a vineyard, the gathering of the grapes, and a merrymaking by the youths ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... mentions, for I know the ravine well, but I never knew nor do I believe that there is a cavern at all in it, and that is what makes me suspect the scoundrel's motives. He can have hundreds of outlaws secretly armed, who would never suffer you to escape with your life. The thing is an ambuscade; take my word for it, it is nothing less. Of course you can go, yourself and your party, if you wish. You will prevent me from running a great risk; but I am only anxious for ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... bottle over one of their heads; and a fight ensues, in which the bandits are worsted. The two Huguenots reach La Rochelle, which is soon afterwards besieged by the king's troops. In a sortie, Bernard forms an ambuscade, into which his brother unfortunately falls, and receives a mortal wound. Taken into La Rochelle, he is laid upon a bed to die; and, refusing the spiritual assistance of Catholic priest and Protestant minister, he accelerates his death by a draught from Hornstein's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... up, kept constantly telling M. de Remusat, "You are going against your interest—I must say that I do not comprehend you!" And yet Savary, himself minister of the police, executor of most important services, head manager of the murder of the Duc d'Enghien and of the ambuscade at Bayonne, counterfeiter of Austrian bank-notes for the campaign of 1809 and of Russian banknotes for that of 1812,[1268] Savary ends in getting weary; he is charged with too many dirty jobs; however hardened his conscience it has a tender spot; he discovers at last that he has scruples. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... having drunk hard. But it is ill to catch an Elliott. For a while, in the night and the black water that was deep as to his saddle-girths, he wrought with his staff like a smith at his stithy, and great was the sound of oaths and blows. With that the ambuscade was burst, and he rode for home with a pistol-ball in him, three knife wounds, the loss of his front teeth, a broken rib and bridle, and a dying horse. That was a race with death that the laird rode! ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 of them from time to time to disperse themselves in the country, provided ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... immediately beneath them. His apparent composure deceived his adversary; and perceiving that he was reconnoitring him, he presented to him, from among the trees and behind curtains, false heads of columns. The time that Grant occupied in reconnoitring, and discovering an imaginary ambuscade, M. de Lafayette employed in regaining the foreground; at length he passed by Grant's column. He managed to impose likewise on Grey's column, which followed him; and when the third division, under ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... them just skinned, for she meant playing a trick upon her father. Then she dug four pits for us to lie in, and sat down to wait till we should come up. When we were close to her, she made us lie down in the pits one after the other, and threw a seal skin over each of us. Our ambuscade would have been intolerable, for the stench of the fishy seals was most distressing {45}—who would go to bed with a sea monster if he could help it?—but here, too, the goddess helped us, and thought of something that gave us great relief, for she put some ambrosia under each man's ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... somewhat minimized by the townspeople, Pierre and his wife, with a view to establishing a strong claim for subsequent reward, bribed Antoine Macquart to lead the Republicans left in Plassans to an attack on the town hall. To meet this he prepared a strong ambuscade, and the Republicans were repulsed with considerable loss. As a result of this treachery, Pierre was regarded by his fellow-citizens as the saviour of the town, and the Government subsequently appointed ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... of the line, followed at some distance by the 6th Regiment, which had marched by the Rue de Bourgogne, emerged from the Rue de l'Universite. "The regiment," says an eye-witness, "marched as one steps in a sickroom." It arrived with a stealthy step before the Presidency door. This ambuscade ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... largest settlements on the island, and where the king of the island resides. On the twenty-fifth he went ashore, leaving the master-of-camp aboard the vessels with a guard for the security of the fleet. Marching in the direction of one of the enemy's forts, they came upon an ambuscade in their path. Coming to a hand-to-hand conflict, Captain Estevan Rodriguez de Figueroa was wounded in the head by a knife-thrust, and died in two days without regaining consciousness. At this turn ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... 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 to imagine. Indeed, ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... not to go that way; it is dangerous for you in the daytime"—it did lend itself to an ambuscade, and persons who knew Wilkes Booth assert having seen him prowling around—"it is ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... would have hesitated about following the Mexicans into the forest, but all of the Texans were expert in woodcraft, and thought they could keep out of an ambuscade as well in the woods as ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... however, was premature, and proved entirely unsuccessful, for the crabs backed and sidled into their burrows with such expedition, that the last of them disappeared before their assailant could get within reach. Leaving Johnny to renew his ambuscade, if so disposed, I proceeded along the reef, and found Max and Browne bathing for the second time that day. They had discovered a charming place for the purpose, where a kind of oval basin was formed ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... with his war-club, made him forget all else, and spring to her rescue. The trapper, who was not hurt, made a blow at his assailant, but he evaded it and tied into the forest where Howe thought it not prudent to follow, as he imagined a whole ambuscade of Indians might be in waiting to seize upon him. Hastening to the assistance of Whirlwind, he saw him closed hand to hand with the savage, their hunting-knives being their only weapons, both having dropped their tomahawks. Howe saw they were equally matched, and fearing the chief would get ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... was. One of the Russians understood what was asked and 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
... "The ambuscade was well-planned, and the Southlanders had enlisted the aid of the Painted Men, to their shame be it said. So our brethren found themselves hemmed in at every point. Yet they sold their lives at a good price, and they are mourning to-day in the Southland, even as we here. Not ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... examining his weapons when a cloud of dust slowly advancing in the distance told him that a party of considerable size was on its way towards the ambuscade. He anxiously awaited their approach, and soon recognised Roberval's Picard escort, and the fluttering skirts of the women. If the men in ambush were waiting for them they were doomed, unless he could warn them. To pass from his hiding meant almost instant death, but it must ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... The pass gradually narrowed as they went, and the mountain-sides grew more precipitous, shutting them in like great walls on either side. Little foothold was there for a lurking enemy, and there were no deep gorges where an ambuscade might hide. To defend this part of the pass in the old days must have meant a hand-to-hand struggle in the narrow way. Ellerey noted this as he went. His life in Sturatzberg had ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... suspicious air, 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
... recal the parting Glances of her Beholders. You see my Complaint, and hope you will take these mischievous People, the Peepers, into your Consideration: I doubt not but you will think a Peeper as much more pernicious than a Starer, as an Ambuscade is more to be feared than an ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... about For that unnoticed failing in herself, Which made him look so cloudy and so cold; Till the great plover's human whistle amazed Her heart, and glancing round the waste she feared In ever wavering brake an ambuscade. Then thought again, 'If there be such in me, I might amend it by the grace of Heaven, If he would only speak and tell ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... tell his own story. "I was sent," he writes, "by Gen. Marion to reconnoitre Georgetown. I proceeded with a guide through the woods all night. At the dawn of day, I drew near the town. I laid an ambuscade, with thirty men and three officers, near the road. About sunrise a chair appeared with two ladies escorted by two British officers. I was ready in advance with an officer to cut them off, but reflecting that they might escape, and alarm the town, which would ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... lumbermen were in camp, and made the same proposition, which they accepted, as they were new in the country and needed horses and mules. The lumbermen joined the Mexicans, and as they could easily discern the course of the Apaches by the clouds of dust, succeeded in forming an ambuscade and fired on the Apaches when they reached the river. The Apaches fled at the fire, leaving ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston
... Flavours? What unnatural Motions and Counterferments must such a Medley of Intemperance produce in the Body? For my Part, when I behold a fashionable Table set out in all its Magnificence, I fancy that I see Gouts and Dropsies, Feavers and Lethargies, with other innumerable Distempers lying in Ambuscade among the Dishes. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... places where it ran over broad levels of grass where he presented a good target to men who might be eager to send a shot at him. There were other spots where the trail led into timber clumps and through tangles of brush where an ambuscade might be planned in perfect safety by an enemy; and there were the bastioned cliffs that towered above the trail at intervals, offering admirable hinding-places for ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... for idle talk. A hundred men immediately mounted and rode up the ravine. On reaching the ground occupied by the picket, they led their horses behind the rocks, and formed an ambuscade. The order was, that all the Indians must be ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... 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
... disappointment at Nombre de Dios. He was evidently a man of great presence of mind. He put spurs to his horse, and galloped off down the road, partly to escape the danger, but partly also to warn the treasure train, the bells of which were now clanging loudly at a little distance from the ambuscade. ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... and I was so full of it that I often dreamed of it, and, sometimes, that I was just going to let fly at them in my sleep. I went so far with it in my imagination that I employed myself several days to find out proper places to put myself in ambuscade, as I said, to watch for them, and I went frequently to the place itself, which was now grown more familiar to me; but while my mind was thus filled with thoughts of revenge and a bloody putting twenty or thirty of them to the sword, as I may ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... running to me, and informed me of the cause of their terror, which was that they recognized, by some peculiarity of their headgear, that these men belonged to the tribe of the Dilwas, the most ferocious and unscrupulous of the Bedouin, who had evidently laid an ambuscade for us at this point with the intention of seizing our caravan. When I thought of all my efforts in Abyssinia, of the length of my journey and of the dangers and fatigues which I had endured, I could not bear to think of this total disaster coming ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... along the lower levels. Sounds, mingled and far ahead, told of the presence of a marching host, and Sergius led his troop on a more oblique course to gain the flank of the foe and lessen the chances of detection and ambuscade. ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... 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 tired ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of the implements of war was not known, nor the war-whoop heard, save on days of festivity, when the achievements of former times were commemorated in a kind of mimic warfare, in which the chiefs and warriors displayed their prowess, and illustrated their former adroitness, by laying the ambuscade, surprizing their enemies, and performing many accurate manoeuvres with the tomahawk and scalping knife; thereby preserving and handing to their children, the theory of Indian warfare. During that period they also pertinaciously observed the religious rites of their progenitors, ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... away from their "forms," to speak in the hunter's phrase, and sought to rejoin each other. But in these attempts they were liable to surprises from the enemy; papa and mamma were both on the alert, and often intercepted the young deserter by a cross march or an ambuscade; in which cases each had a separate policy for enforcing obedience. The father, upon his general system of "perseverance," compelled the fugitive back to his quarters, and, in effect, exhorted him to persist in being frightened out of his wits. To his wife's gentle ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... Right and left everybody's servants were on the gallop for news. The country taverns were thronged with horsemen, who drank and cursed and brawled at the bars, each bringing his gloomy story. The army had been surprised. The troops had fallen into an ambuscade, and had been cut up almost to a man. All the officers were taken down by the French marksmen and the savages. The General had been wounded, and carried off the field in his sash. Four days afterwards the report was that the General was dead, and ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... my part," says an elegant writer, "when I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy I see gouts, and dropsies, fevers, and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... and were finally relieved by a force from the railway. All the operations were not, however, as successful as these three defences. On October 24th a party of cavalry details belonging to many regiments were snapped up in an ambuscade. On the next day Jacobsdal was attacked, with considerable loss to the British. The place was entered in the night, and the enemy occupied the houses which surrounded the square. The garrison, consisting of about sixty men of the Capetown Highlanders, had encamped in the square, and were ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was begun. The point chosen was a broad beach fringed with woods near the anchorage of the vessels. Before landing the troops, the ships threw a few shells into the woods, to make certain that they concealed no ambuscade, as in the disastrous affair at Matthias Point. After two dozen shells had burst, mowing down trees, and driving out frightened animals in plenty, but no sharp-shooters, the long-boats put off from ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... YOU?' She repressed a little shudder, and clasped his hand more closely. 'Don't let us say anything more about it, she implored him; 'we are just together again, you and I; that is all that matters.' But her words were like brave soldiers who have fought their way through an ambuscade but have left all confidence ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... 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 not, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... Thompson, who dared to attack a foraging party of four hundred British troops at McIntire's Branch, seven miles northwest of Charlotte, on the Beattie's Ford road, compelling them to retreat, with a considerable loss of men and a small amount of forage, fearing, as they said, an ambuscade was prepared ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... of Nicaragua. Here he burnt and pillaged ruthlessly, committing 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. As he could get no information out of these men, the Frenchman ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... these, 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 not forbid it, And whatsoe'er they nymm'd, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... time Daniel came, he resumed his seat by the stove, and remained silent for a while. Then, without the slightest warning or apparent motivation, he began to discuss religion. And how? With the old spirit of defiance, as if from an ambuscade from which he could send out his poisoned arrows, with calculating maliciousness and cold rebellion, with the air of a man who has been defeated, who is now being pursued, and who is willing to concede more to the earthly order of things than to the ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... hundred yards wide at its greatest width, and perhaps half a mile long, and then runs up and across the face of a third cliff which drops sheer down into the river. This cliff forms the end of the trap. It would be hard to find a better place for an ambuscade. ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... Caxamarca. He learnt likewise, that the royalists squadron had gone to the port of Santa, to which place he accordingly marched. Aldana got notice of his coming from some Spanish inhabitants of that place, and laid an ambuscade for him, consisting of an hundred and fifty musqueteers, in a place overgrown with tall reeds on the side of the road by which Acosta had to march in his way to Santa. Acosta had certainly fallen into the snare, if he had not fortunately ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... declivities. Bouquet resorted to a ruse which was signally successful. He formed his men in a wide semicircle, and from the centre advanced a company toward the enemy; the advancing company then made a feint of retreat, the deceived Indians followed close after and fell into the ambuscade. The outwitted savages were completely routed and fled in hopeless confusion. Bouquet had won one of the greatest victories in Western Indian warfare. His loss was about one hundred fifty men, nearly a third of his army. The loss of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Here once when Melanippe, daughter of Ares, had, gone forth, the hero Heracles caught her by ambuscade and Hippolyte gave him her glistening girdle as her sister's ransom, and he sent away his captive unharmed. In the bay of this headland, at the outfall of Thermodon, they ran ashore, for the sea ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... first was a chant, a saga, a recitation of the glories of his ancestors. The Malhominis had been a proud race,—now they were dwindled to this village of eighty braves. He crooned long tales of famine, of tribal bickerings, of ambuscade and defeat; his voice rustled monotonously ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... had time 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 observed ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... that the fight—if fight there were—would be made. Should the Indians take the palisade, there would yet be the houses of the town, and, last of all, the fort in which to make a stand. I believed not that they would take it, for Indian warfare ran more to ambuscade and surprise than to assault in the ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... by chance, and I had time to look again upon her face, which was even more beautiful than I had imagined. Her eyes were large and peculiarly black, and fringed by long lashes, which, aided by the collyrium with which they were tinged, formed a sort of ambuscade, from which she levelled her shafts. Her eyebrows were finely arched, and nature had brought them together just over her nose, in so strong a line, that there was no need of art to join them together. ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... This is the life which has most 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
... mangling the insect, the deer fighting among themselves, and man, in his turn, pursuing all kinds of game. He identified nature with woman, both possessing in his eyes an equally deceiving appearance, the same beguiling beauty, and the same spirit of ambuscade and perfidy. The people around him inspired him only with mistrust and suspicion. In every peasant he met he recognized an enemy, prepared to cheat him with wheedling words and hypocritical lamentations. Although during the few months he ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... moment two incidents occurred to still further increase the curiosity of which she was the object. Quite close to Chinon some vagabonds, it is said, had prepared an ambuscade for the purpose of despoiling her, her and her train. She passed close by them without the least obstacle. The rumor went that at her approach they were struck motionless, and had been unable to attempt their wicked purpose. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... with a high hand; and no wonder, for the possession of gunpowder gives them almost absolute power. The mode by which tribes armed with bows and arrows carry on warfare, or defend themselves, is by ambuscade. They never come out in open fight, but wait for the enemy ensconced behind trees, or in the long grass of the country, and shoot at him unawares. Consequently, if men come against them with firearms, when, as is usually the case, the long grass is all burned off, the tribe attacked are as ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... 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 ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... stealthily creeping along, we gained a small rise of ground which commanded a more extended view than most places in the Black Forest, and, but for the thickness of the trees, we could have seen our own camping-place and the part where the ambuscade had been laid. From sounds of the voices, we could tell that the ruffians were leading their prisoners to the spot where we had passed the night, and the most fearful oaths and imprecations could ever and anon ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey |
