"Ambush" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... himself of Portus, which guarded the mouth of the river Tiber on the north bank and alone made possible the provisioning of the city. Fearing that this stronghold would now be attacked, Bessas despatched a body of soldiers to strengthen its garrison; but they fell into a Gothic ambush, and were cut to pieces. Opposite Portus, and separated from it by a desert island, on either side of which Tiber flowed to the sea, lay the ancient town of Ostia, once the port of the world's traffic, now ruinous and scarce ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... Three o'clock! How time dragged on. But he did not move from his ambush, though he felt his limbs stiffening and his brain begin to fag. The thoughts of dire punishments had passed from his mind. That, indeed, had become a blank. What was he doing there? He couldn't quite remember at times—all his energies ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... party landed they discovered the print of feet on the sand below high-water mark, showing that people had lately been there. A thick wood came down to within a hundred yards of the water. To avoid the risk of being cut off by an ambush, the explorers proceeded cautiously, skirting the wood till they came to a grove of cocoanut trees of small growth which stood on the bank of a little stream. The trees were well hung with fruit, and near them was a small hut, round ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... him. He could detect the name of "Melton" and "Pedro" as often recurring, but to his intense disappointment could get no coherent idea of the felony the rustlers had in view. Had he done so, his quest would have ended then and there. It would then be simply a matter of laying an ambush at the given time and place, into which the rascals would walk blindly, and from which there would be no escape. But when at last the conference was over, he was no wiser than before, except that his suspicions as to the ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... moment, this noble and proud man, this severe and grave magistrate experienced an irresistible longing for vengeance. He began to understand the hate that arms itself with a knife, and lays in ambush in out-of-the-way places; which strikes in the dark, whether in front or from behind matters little, but which strikes, which kills, whose ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... along the pathway, which lay through a thick jungle of tall trees and brushwood. It was not the pleasantest style of country to traverse, seeing that a tiger might spring out and carry off a fellow, and that the enemy, if they had had the wits to do it, might have placed an ambush, and shot us down without our being able to see one of them. However, after marching about fifteen miles, we arrived at an open valley, where we bivouacked. We could hear the enemy all night long popping away ahead of us pretty smartly. I suppose it was under the idea they should frighten us barbarians, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... related here, was waged against them. Five hundred Bushmen were slaughtered in 1774, three thousand in 1808 and 1809 by the Farmers' Alliance, and so on. They were poisoned like rats, killed by hunters lying in ambush before the carcass of some animal, killed wherever met with.(11) So that our knowledge of the Bushmen, being chiefly borrowed from those same people who exterminated them, is necessarily limited. But still we know that when the Europeans came, the Bushmen lived in small ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... to keep the traitors in check, while Gaston went forth in command of the party, who were certain to fight with a good will where spoil was the object. They would be absent at least two nights, since the pass of the Pyrenees, where they intended to lie in ambush, was at a considerable distance, nor was the time of the arrival ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... out; for she knew that it was Marcos who had followed their carriage from Pampeluna. She guessed that finding no troops where he expected to find them he had ridden ahead to discover the cause of it and had passed unheard through the Carlist ambush and back again through the zone of fire. That Juanita could accomplish the journey on foot to Torre Garda seemed doubtful. The country was unsafe; the snows had hardly melted. It was madness for a wounded man and a girl to attempt to reach ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... glorying in their fortunate escape, Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease, And Night's dark reign restores their peace. For now the gale subsides, and from each bough The roosting pheasant's short but frequent crow Invites to rest, and huddling side by side The herd in closest ambush seek to hide; Seek some warm slope with shagged moss o'erspread, Dried leaves their copious covering and their bed. In vain may Giles, through gathering glooms that fall, And solemn silence, urge his piercing call; Whole days and nights ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... and revenge though slow, Yet ever plotting how the Conquerour least May reap his conquest, and may least rejoyce In doing what we most in suffering feel? 340 Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need With dangerous expedition to invade Heav'n, whose high walls fear no assault or Siege, Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find Some easier enterprize? There is a place (If ancient and prophetic fame in Heav'n Err not) another World, the happy seat Of som new Race call'd Man, about this time To be created like to us, though less In power and excellence, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... reconnaissance, like an Indian or a wild animal, or like a domestic animal violently expelled. Edwin almost expected him to creep round by the Town Hall into Saint Luke's Square, and then to reappear stealthily at the other end of Wedgwood Street, and from a western ambush stare again at ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... descriptive poetry than the image of the naked moon, in virginal distress, flying for refuge through the gazing heaven to the succourable cloud—fleece on fleece of piled-up snow, drowsily patient—where Pan lay in ambush for her beauty. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... was locally possible, and, if locally attained, might have even compassed an ultimate victory. If to this idea be linked that which is closely akin to it—of attaining results, not by superior dexterity in the use of means, but by subtlety and ambush—and we have the explanation both of the numerous artful traps into which British detachments were led, like game into the snare of the hunter, and yet also of the sure failure to achieve success in war, for the craft of the hunter is not ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... disappeared; there is every reason to suppose that he went to betray them. They wandered for a few days in the mountains, looking for the insurgent band which they had been falsely told was waiting for them, and then fell into an ambush prepared by the Neapolitan troops. Some died fighting; nine were shot at Cosenza, including the Bandieras, Mori, Ricciotti and Nardi. Boccheciampi the Corsican, whom they suspected of treason, was brought up to be confronted with them during the trial; when asked if he knew who he was, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... another, which they do not, except when, after a false alarm, they regain their hiding-places and choose the spot which seems to them the most favourable. This immobility means that the florets of the camomile serve them only as a place of ambush, even as later the Anthophora's body will serve them solely as a vehicle to convey them to the Bee's cell. They take no nourishment, either on the flowers or on the Bees; and, as with the Sitares, their first meal will consist of the Anthophora's egg, which the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... of the approach of Herkimer, and placed a large body consisting of the "Johnson Greens," and Brant's Indians in ambush near Oriskany, on the road by which he was to advance. Herkimer fell into the snare. The first notice which he received of the presence of an enemy was from a heavy discharge of musketry on his troops, which was instantly followed by the war-whoop of the Indians who attacked the militia ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... your head! What you must do is to get yourself ready. Muster your soldiers quietly and put them in ambush, send me four guards for the convento, and notify the men in charge ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... had now reached the border of the deserted camp; and inclining to the left, he galloped down the line, scattering the wolves as he went. He sat leaning to one side, his gaze searching the ground. When nearly opposite to our ambush, he descried the object of his search, and sliding his feet out of the stirrup, guided his horse so as to shave closely past it. Then, without reining in, or even slacking his pace, he bent over until his plume swept the earth, and picking up the bow, swung himself ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... already Swan was halfway up the canyon's steep side, making his way through the brush with more speed than Lone could have shown on foot in the open, unless he ran. The sight heartened Lone a little. Swan might have some plan of his own,—an ambush, possibly. If he would only keep along within rifle shot and remain hidden, he would show real brains, Lone thought. But Swan, when Lone looked up again, was climbing straight away from the little searching party; and ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... In the forest the young scouts had lain in wait for enemies, had hidden in the darkness to trap desperate foes, had watched, with bated breath and pounding hearts, for shadowy forms to appear. They were not unaccustomed to danger and the suspense of an ambush. But in the forest they had solid ground beneath their feet. Trees and other tangible objects were all about them. But here everything seemed unreal, almost ghostly. The darkness of the forest was no blacker than the night here in the open. And yet there was ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... faith, and of fear.' 'He would have acknowledged religion had he seen any that was true, anything rather than that baseness which he did see.' 'If there is no other religion than this of popes and cardinals, let us to the robber's ambush and the dragon's den.' 'A little early sympathy, a word of true guidance, perhaps had saved him. What says he of himself? "Despiser of wealth and of death." Two grand scorns; but, oh! condemned Salvator, the question ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Grecian hirelings. They came, 13,000 in number, led by brave and renowned generals, and did their duty by him; but their valor could not save him from defeat and death. Their own leader fell into an ambush, and they commenced their retreat under the most disastrous circumstances and with ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... that leads into Gascony, between the mountains, with twenty thousand of his warriors, Turpin, the Archbishop, and Ganalon, and while the rear kept guard, early in the morning Marsir and Beligard, rushing down from the hills, where, by Ganalon's advice, they had lain two days in ambush, formed their troops into two great divisions, and with the first of twenty thousand men attacked our army, which making a bold resistance, fought from morning to the third hour, and utterly destroyed the enemy. But a fresh body of thirty thousand ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... order to reach it. Besides, night was advancing; midnight had struck at the fort. Porthos and Aramis were loaded with money and arms. They walked, then, across the heath, which stretched between the mole and the cavern, listening to every noise, in order better to avoid an ambush. From time to time, on the road which they had carefully left on their left, passed fugitives coming from the interior, at the news of the landing of the royal troops. Aramis and Porthos, concealed behind some projecting mass of rock, collected ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of six hundred at Amherstburg. The Canadians have come by open boat up Lake Erie from Niagara through furious rains; but they are fighting for their homes, and with eager enthusiasm follow Brock on up Detroit River to Sandwich, opposite the American fort. Indians come by night and lie in ambush south of Detroit to protect the Canadians while they cross the river. Then the cannon on the Canadian side begin a humming of bombs overhead. While the bombs play over the stream at Sandwich, Brock rushes thirteen hundred men across the river south of Detroit, and before midday of ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... put the case in another form, who knows how many excellent works in medium quarto, not less than crown octavo, may have been suppressed and intercepted in their rudiments by these expurgatorial ruffians? Mr. Mure mentions as the exquisite reason for the present fashion of shooting from an ambush first, and settling accounts afterwards, that by this means they evade the chances of a contest. The Greek robber, it seems, knows as well as Cicero that 'non semper viator a latrone, nonnunquam etiam latro a viatore occiditur'—a disappointment ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... past his ear, and he whirled to see half a dozen of his men go down beneath a storm of lead from the hillsides; at the same instant some three-score men came scrambling down from among the rocks—those same rocks where he had first laid ambush for the ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... been endangered by an act of carelessness, and may even yet be lost. It is all the same whether one be at sea or face to face with the enemy. A ship at sea is like an army in battle. The tempest, though unseen, is ever present; the sea is an ambush. Death is the fit penalty for every fault committed when facing the enemy. There is no fault that can be retrieved. Courage must be rewarded and ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... of Useguhha, and Ferahan had been killed. I learned also that they had succeeded in capturing Wilyankuru in a very short time, that Mirambo and his son were there, that as they succeeded in effecting an entrance, Mirambo had collected his men, and after leaving the village, had formed an ambush in the grass, on each side of the road, between Wilyankuru and Zimbizo, and that as the attacking party were returning home laden with over a hundred tusks of ivory, and sixty bales of cloth, and two or three hundred slaves, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... now no other employment than to contemplate the innumerable casualties which lie in ambush on every side to intercept the happiness of man, and break in upon the hour of delight and tranquillity. He had, however, the consolation of thinking, that he had not been now disappointed by his own fault, and that the accident which had blasted ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... gette his enemie in the midst and so to enuiron him. Let our bands take this caveat also, if the enemie retire, not to make any long pursuit after him, lest peraduenture (according to his custome) he might draw them into some secret ambush: for the Tartar fights more by policie than by maine force. Those horses which the Tartars vse one day, they ride not vpon three or foure dayes after. Moreouer, if the Tartars draw homeward, our men must not therefore depart and casseir their bandes, or separate themselues asunder: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... holding them back. At the siege of Tangier in North Africa in the seventeenth century Admiral Herbert "checked" Captain Barclay "for suffering too forward and furious an advance, lest they might fall into an ambush"; whereupon Barclay said, "Sir, I can lead them on, but the Furies can't call them back." A naval brigade man-handled the guns on the Plains of Abraham the day of Wolfe's victory, and took forty-seven up the cliff and into position before the army had dug itself in for the ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... ago, Perk; men engaged in the desperate game they're playing night after night would need such a useful instrument, so's to keep a sharp lookout for Coast Guard boats or bunches of revenue men lying in ambush close to the place they expected to land a wet cargo, or a couple of high-pay Chinks, ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... The death of the Athenian general Charoeades, killed by the Syracusans in battle, left Laches in the sole command of the fleet, which he now directed in concert with the allies against Mylae, a place belonging to the Messinese. Two Messinese battalions in garrison at Mylae laid an ambush for the party landing from the ships, but were routed with great slaughter by the Athenians and their allies, who thereupon assaulted the fortification and compelled them to surrender the Acropolis and to march with them upon Messina. This town afterwards also submitted ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... the 'General of his Forces,' and not only has ten thousand men brought secretly and by night at three days' notice—in itself a notable piece of strategy—but when they arrive on the scene places furthermore the whole force in ambush! No wonder that when the soldiers are let loose out of their necessarily cramped quarters, they kill many of the shepherds, and putting the rest to flight remain masters ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... but I dasn't come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and his cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this day yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush. Buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their relations—the Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what was become of young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across the river and was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take on because he didn't ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... feel that I was neglecting my business; that since I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperadoes, the least I could do was to overhear them at their councils, and that my plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage, under the favorable ambush of the ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with which he ripped his assailant open. The same able writer relates an incident which occurred to an English gentleman, holding a high public situation in the peninsula, during a wolf-hunt in the mountains, near Madrid. The sportsmen were placed in ambush, and the country-people drove the game toward them; presently an animal came bounding upward toward this gentleman, so large that he took it, while driving through the high grass and bushes, for a donkey; it was a wolf, however, whose glaring eyes meant mischief, but, scared ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... friend and blood-brother that he reserve himself for these great deeds and not risk a chance bullet in ambush for the sake of an Erie scalp or two—for the sake of a patch of mangy fur which grows on these ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... handsome, was of a model less superb than her elder sister. She was a charming little brunette, with laughter always lurking in ambush within her sparkling black eyes, a mouth like "Cupid's bow carved in coral," and dimples in her cheeks, that well deserved ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... From an ambush of laurel bushes close beside the path, a tall, slender form stood forth, the lissome figure of a girl in the budding charm of womanhood. There was a lithe, curving beauty in the lines that the scant homespun gown outlined so clearly. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... did not seem to be nearly so pleased about it. He had put away his high spirits and retired into his shell once more. When he was going about like this, he often looked as if there was something invisible lying in ambush for him and he was afraid of ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... on shortened belts, and, whenever the opportunity offered, watched the beach and jungle. We were kept on the alert, for we could not shake off the disconcerting feeling that we were being watched from the brush by the pirates, getting ready to ambush us at their leisure the minute we relaxed ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... I am now able to judge, is that the count has stated the facts precisely as they were. I am quite ready to believe that the murderer was lying in ambush behind one of the piles of wood, and at the distance which he has mentioned. I am also able to affirm that the two shots were fired at different distances,—one much nearer than the other. The proof of it lies in the nature ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... did their utmost to preach peace, the Donatist bishops urged their followers to the holy war. Augustin even received threats on his life. During one of his visitations, he was nearly assassinated. Men in ambush lay in wait for him. By a providential chance, he took the wrong road, and owed his life to this mistake. His pupil Possidius, who was then Bishop of Guelma, was not so lucky. Brought to bay in a house by the Donatist bishop Crispinus, he defended himself desperately. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... is here, so is he always, unwavering in decision, prompt of speech and of action. Caught in ambush, ill-armed and solitary, by the treacherous Thebans, as he returns from his futile embassy, he never hesitates; he seizes the one point of vantage, crushes his foes, and when he speaks, speaks briefly and to the point. He spares the last of his fifty assailants ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... the romance of my father's life," the soft voice went on, speaking as if I had not interrupted him, "but nobody knows the tragedy. Love for my mother came upon him like an arrow shot out of ambush, and he married into a worldly, pleasure-loving, agnostic circle of people who all adored and flattered him until he—he became confused and doubting. He had transgressed the law: 'yoke not yourselves with unbelievers,' and he suffered. She never ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Redlands over the cliffs, entering his own grounds by a low wire fence, and thence turning inwards towards the garden. The sounds of gay voices reached him as he approached, and he speedily found himself caught in a lively ambush that consisted of Peggy, Reggie, and Noel. He naturally fled for his life, but was overtaken by the latter and held down while the two accomplices rifled his pockets. By the rules of the game all coppers ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... enhanced their immaculate virginity. White pique skirts, destined to be grimed by the sands of beach and tee, dangled like innocent lambs before the slaughter. Just behind this starched and glistening ambush one glimpsed the bent head and the nimble fingers of Martha Eggers, first aid to ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... that his firmness saved the Company many a cargo of these implements. His harangue produced an immediate impression upon all save the humiliated brave, who declared that, if the Assiniboines came hither to barter, he would lie in ambush and kill them. ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... undesirable Madame Shuster touches a sharp crisis. I had the highest hopes that constant association of some days in an automobile might force a crash, as it was but the spirit of laissez faire and the pressing need of money which led Monsieur into the ambush, as Madame la Marquise already knows. I am not carried on these frequent and sudden excursions which have become a family custom with us; for I was obliged firmly to make Mademoiselle comprehend that I could not in self-respect ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... are an ambush, its lights a surprise. It blushes, it pales, can whisper, exclaim. It is a peep, a part revelation, just sufferable, of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... beach not far from Manila, to take some recreation, they sent these slaves ahead that, like house-thieves, they might spy out the land. Information had just come that the enemy were accustomed to disembark in that neighborhood, so two companies were sent to lie in ambush to deal them some blow. The slaves landed, and our men seeing them, attacked them, killed two, and captured the other two alive. From these we learned in detail the forces which the enemy had. When the latter saw that his scouts did not return ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... us. The two bulls walked slowly on, heavily swinging from side to side in their peculiar gait of stupid dignity. They approached within four or five rods of the ravine where the Indians lay in ambush. Here at last they seemed conscious that something was wrong, for they both stopped and stood perfectly still, without looking either to the right or to the left. Nothing of them was to be seen but two huge black masses of shaggy mane, with horns, eyes, and nose in the center, and a pair of hoofs ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... whose wishes defection to the Samnites had occurred, even opened one of the gates for the consul in the night, secretly admitting the armed enemy into the town. In consequence of this twofold treachery, the Samnite garrison was surprised and overpowered by an ambush, placed in the woody places, near the road; and, at the same time, a shout was raised in the city, which was now filled with the enemy. Thus, in the short space of one hour, the Samnites were put to the sword, the Satricans made prisoners, and all things reduced under ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... to inflict the death penalty when it has been decreed; and he is one of the assistants in the yearly sacrifice. It is not necessary that those he kills, in order to gain the right to wear a red suit, be warriors. On the contrary he may kill women and children from ambush and still receive credit for the achievement, provided his victims are from a hostile village. He may count those of his townspeople whom he has killed in fair fight, and the murder of an unfaithful wife and her admirer is credited to him ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... reel and fall with a groan. Then his own gun was heard. His aim was less effective, and only brought a volley in reply from the raiders. That volley was the signal for the real battle to begin. The ambush of the two defenders was located, and the rustlers divided, and came sweeping round ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... ferocity, strength, and activity. In the north, where it abounds and furnishes staple furs and meat, it is held in no such awe. It is never known to attack man. It often follows his trail out of curiosity, and often the trapper who is so followed gets the Lynx by waiting in ambush; then it is easily killed with a charge of duck-shot. When caught in a snare a very small club is used to "add it to the list." It seems tremendously active among logs and brush piles, but on the level ground its speed is poor, and a good runner can overtake ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... heard, O auspicious King, that the Captain, after seeing to the mules and the jars which Ali Baba and his household held to be full of oil, finding utter privacy, whispered to his men who were in ambush, "This night at midnight when ye hear my voice, do you quickly open with your sharp knives the leathern jars from top to bottom and issue forth without delay." Then passing through the kitchen he reached ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... the end. It had been an ambush. The small detachment of troops had been led by the guide into the midst of a large body of the enemy—it had been surrounded. Captain Langrishe had fallen, as had a young lieutenant. The men had stood shoulder to shoulder, fighting desperately. By the most desperate courage ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... confidence that had come to me with the presence of my guards, had made it a tolerable spot in which to live. But as we stumbled up the stairway the apprehensions of Dicky Nahl came strong upon me, and I looked ahead to the murky halls, and glanced at every doorway, as though I expected an ambush. Porter and Barkhouse marched stolidly along, showing little ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... round a mountain slant. Then the eyes of the Chief reddened, his nostrils grew wide, and the darkness of his face was as flame mixed with smoke, and he seized Bhanavar and hastened onward, and lo! yonder were his men overmatched, and warriors of the mountains bursting on them from an ambush on all sides. Ruark leapt in his seat, and the light of combat was on him, and he dug his knees into his mare, and shouted the war-cry of his tribe, lifting his hands as it were to draw down wrath from the very heavens, and rushed to the encounter. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is quite unconscious of Fenwick's amused eyes fixed on her, and his smile in ambush. She says the last words through a hairpin, while her hands take advantage of the lull to make a good job of that rope of black hair. She will go on and tell all the story; so Fenwick doesn't speak. Surprised at first by the tale of Dr. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... track. Here he stole steadily along; there he left many tracks at a point where he might have halted to make sure of his scent. He was circling on the trail of the stallion, with cunning intent of ambush. The end of this slow, careful stalk of the lion, as told in his tracks, came upon the edge of a knoll where he had crouched to watch and wait. From this perch he had made a magnificent spring—Slone estimating it to be forty feet—but he had missed the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... and the colonel of the third regiment, a Pennsylvanian named Bedford, rode together and their young officers were just behind. All examined the country continually through glasses to guard against ambush. Stuart was gone and Forrest was far away, but they knew that danger from the fierce riders of the South was always present. Just when the capital seemed safest Early's men had appeared in its very suburbs, and here in Virginia, where the hand of every man and of every woman and ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... came round for my return to the scene of the deed of violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of Justice, specially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the gate;—whether Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for an outrage done to her house, might rise in those grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me dead:—whether suborned boys—a ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... had incited the enemies of his master, the Emperor, to take the city by treachery. When Guan Yu heard of it he hastened up with an army to relieve the town. But he fell into an ambush, and, together with his son, was brought a captive to the capital of the enemy's land. The prince of that country would have been glad to have had him go over to his side; but Guan Yu swore that he would not yield ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... full confidence that creatures from space would not be able to read it. Lockley was not so sure, but the message hadn't been removed. If it had been read, there'd have been an ambush waiting for him when he found ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... responsibility. Yet as I had never turned my back upon the people because difficulties and dangers presented themselves, so I made up my mind not to desert them upon this trying occasion, when I knew they were surrounded by the most base and blood-thirsty opponents, who were laying in ambush, and only waiting for a pretext to take every unmanly and cowardly advantage of any accidental disturbance or disorder that might occur. I repeat again, that I consented most reluctantly to accept Johnson's pressing invitation ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... comes So parted at the summit, as it seem'd Ascending from that funeral pile, where lay The Theban brothers?" He replied: "Within Ulysses there and Diomede endure Their penal tortures, thus to vengeance now Together hasting, as erewhile to wrath. These in the flame with ceaseless groans deplore The ambush of the horse, that open'd wide A portal for that goodly seed to pass, Which sow'd imperial Rome; nor less the guile Lament they, whence of her Achilles 'reft Deidamia yet in death complains. And there is rued the stratagem, that Troy Of her Palladium spoil'd."—"If ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... narrow door and out into the fog, hair on end, eyes bulging but sightless, legs traveling like the wind and as purposeless. It mattered not that the way was hidden; it mattered less that weeds, brush, and stumps lurked in ambush for unwary feet. They fled into the foggy dangers without a thought of what lay before them—only of what stalked ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... baggage through a sudden attack of the Aquitanian tribes. In Further Spain Metellus penetrated into the Lusitanian territory; but Sertorius succeeded during the siege of Longobriga (not far from the mouth of the Tagus) in alluring a division under Aquinus into an ambush, and thereby compelling Metellus himself to raise the siege and to evacuate the Lusitanian territory. Sertorius followed him, defeated on the Anas (Guadiana) the corps of Thorius, and inflicted vast damage by guerilla warfare on the army of the commander-in- chief ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... ambush a half mile from the mine, at a point where the road dipped down a wooded slope ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... those slight curtains. Scented breezes forced their way in through the interstices of the window frame, the many voices of nature made the panes resound. All the life of the park laughed, chattered, and whispered in ambush beneath their window. As it reached them their cheeks would pale and they would raise their voices, seeking some occupation which might prevent them ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... the santon; mount him upon one of our chargers; he shall abide with us in our ambush." While Almamen chafed in vain at his arrest, all in the Christian camp was yet still. At length, as the sun began to lift himself above the mountains, first a murmur, and then a din, betokened warlike ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... giue the people scope, 'Twould be my tirrany to strike and gall them, For what I bid them doe: For, we bid this be done When euill deedes haue their permissiue passe, And not the punishment: therefore indeede (my father) I haue on Angelo impos'd the office, Who may in th' ambush of my name, strike home, And yet, my nature neuer in the sight To do in slander: And to behold his sway I will, as 'twere a brother of your Order, Visit both Prince, and People: Therefore I pre'thee Supply me with the habit, and instruct me How I may formally in person beare Like a true Frier: ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... and thirty-five mounted on camels and horses, and though they seemed to be a race both barbarous and bestial, there was not wanting in them a certain sharpness, with which they could cheat their enemies, for at first there only appeared three of them on the beach, and the rest lay in ambush till our men should land and they could rush out and master them, which thing they could easily have done, so many were they, if our men had been a whit less sharp than themselves. But when the Moors saw that our boats did ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... lines, "O Caledonia, stern and wild! Meet nurse for a poetic child," etc. All these people at Fort Pitt were idle, and therefore were not capable of eating as much as if they had been on the plains. The wild hills that surround Fort Pitt are frequently the scenes of Indian ambush and attack, and on more than one occasion the fort itself has been captured by the Blackfeet. The region in which Fort Pitt stands is a favourite camping-ground of the Crees, and the Blackfeet cannot be persuaded ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... grasses. Daylight brought the renewal of the treacherous sharpshooting. The enemy closed in about us and from their points of vantage their deadly arrows and bullets were hurled upon our low wall of defence. And so the unequal struggle continued. Ours was henceforth an ambush fight. The redskins did not attack us in open charge again, and we durst not go out to meet them. And so the thing became a game of endurance with us, a slow wearing away of ammunition and food, a growing fever ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... desiring to bring her into her power, or, at least, to conciliate her, planned a marriage between Jeanne's son and Marguerite of Valois—sister of Charles IX. When the suggestion that the marriage should take place came from the king of France, Jeanne d'Albret suspected an ambush; with the determination to supervise personally all arrangements for the nuptials, she set out for the French court. Venerated by the Protestants, and hated but admired by the Catholics, she had become celebrated throughout Europe for her beauty, intelligence, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... mind was at once made up, but I bade my valet go through the same investigation, and then asked him whether he had ever seen an ambush of this kind laid for game. He replied that the shot would pass over the tallest stag, or aught but a man on horseback; and fortified by this, I mounted without saying more, and we retraced our steps. The hound, which had doubtless ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... and defile everything with unclean touch, spreading a foul smell, and uttering dreadful cries. Again, in a deep recess under a caverned rock, shut in with waving shadows of woodland, we array the board and renew the altar fires; again, from their blind ambush in diverse quarters of the sky, the noisy crowd flutter with clawed feet around their prey, defiling the feast with their lips. Then I bid my comrades take up arms, and proclaim war on the accursed race. Even as I bade they do, range their swords in cover among the grass, and hide their ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... presently out by water and landed at Somerset stairs, and thence through Covent Garden, where I met with Mr. Southwell (Sir W. Pen's friend), who tells me the very sad newes of my Lord Tiviott's and nineteen more commission officers being killed at Tangier by the Moores, by an ambush of the enemy upon them, while they were surveying their lines; which is very sad, and, he says, afflicts the King much. Thence to W. Joyce's, where by appointment I met my wife (but neither of them at home), ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... it right. But he knows you think Injun, you live Injun, you eat Injun, you smell Injun when you do. They don't leave no more trail than an ant steppin' high, 'less they want you should foller them into a nice ambush as they has all figgered out. Put Greyfeather an' his Pimas on 'em an' then leg it till your belly's near meetin' your backbone an' you is all one big tired ache. Iffen you kin drink sand an' keep on footin' it over red-hot rocks when you is nigh t' a bag o' bones, ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... alike masters. Their fights and the fights in the Icelandic sagas are the best that have ever been drawn by mortal man. When swords are aloft, in siege or on the greensward, or in the midnight chamber where an ambush is laid, Scott and Dumas are indeed themselves. The steel rings, the bucklers clash, the parry and lunge pass and answer too swift for the sight. If Dumas has not, as he certainly has not, the noble philosophy and kindly knowledge ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... there lay the inviting white road, and I remembered that my comrades had both taken their horses. That was clearly their ruin, for nothing could be easier than for the brigands to keep watch upon the road, and to lay an ambush for all who passed along it. It would not be difficult for me to ride across country, and I was well horsed at that time, for I had not only Violette and Rataplan, who were two of the finest mounts ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ruined wing, through windows garnished with bars of iron, the dismantled chambers of the main building of brick are visible; the English guards were in ambush in these rooms; the spiral of the staircase, cracked from the ground floor to the very roof, appears like the inside of a broken shell. The staircase has two stories; the English, besieged on the staircase, and massed on its upper steps, had cut off the lower steps. These consisted of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... ask what you will. But sometimes in these nightly congregations the silence was unbroken. When King Ajatasattu went to visit him[355] in the mango grove of Jivaka he was seized with sudden fear at the unearthly stillness of the place and suspected an ambush. "Fear not, O King," said Jivaka, "I am playing you no tricks. Go straight on. There in the pavilion hall the lamps are burning ... and there is the Blessed One sitting against the middle pillar, facing the east with the brethren ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... o'er a mountain, In ambush for the dark, And a traveller in the vale below Rejoicing like a lark; A taper nearly vanished Amid the dawning gray, And a maiden lifting up her head, ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... faith less than two hundred years ago. It is not wonderful that, to the Massachusetts Puritans of {342} the seventeenth century, the mysterious forest held no beautiful suggestion; to them it was simply a grim and hideous wilderness, whose dark aisles were the ambush of prowling savages and the rendezvous of those other "devil-worshipers" who celebrated there a kind of ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... however. He might be a Boer outpost anxious to ascertain if we were Englishmen. Afraid to ride into ambush of my own men, I called ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... songs a review appeared in the Phoenix which had a remarkably realistic ring to the ear of the layman. As a matter of fact it was merely an underhanded attempt at assassination. The thing was signed with a big, isolated "W." Wurzelmann, the little slave, had shot from his ambush. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... could. When within three miles of the lake, their scout brought in a prisoner, who told them that an English column was approaching. The regulars were halted on the road, the Canadians and Indians moved on ahead, and hid themselves in ambush among the trees and bushes on either ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... the smooth, hard trail into the north, Philip asked himself these and a score of other questions equally perplexing. He was certain that the beautiful young woman whom he had followed had purposely lured him into the ambush. He considered himself her prisoner. Then why should he be consigned, like a parcel of freight, to Hodges, her husband's accuser, and the man who demanded the full penalty of the law for ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... the other, his wife seated on a pillion behind him, it may be with a child in her lap, as was the fashion in those days, could not proceed safely; but, at the moment when least expected, bullets would whizz among them, sent from an unseen enemy by the wayside. The forest that protected the ambush of the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... then the huntsmen hasten up, abandoning their ambush; Clean from his head they chop his horn, prized antidote to poison; And let the docked and luckless beast escape into the jungles." ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... recoil, their affected panic, their broken exclamations of despair;—their retreat, first partial and reluctant, next seemingly hurried and complete,—flying, but in flight carefully confused:—then the settled watchword, the lightning rally, the rush of the cavalry from the ambush; the sweep and hem round the pursuing foe, the detachment of levelled spears to cut off the Saxon return to the main force, and the lost ground,—were all directed by the most consummate mastership ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the village green. She drives him away in no very gentle fashion, and he runs away from her only to carouse the more. Returning home after nightfall in a decidedly muddled condition, he puts his head through the open window at the rear, not observing his irate wife, who stands in ambush behind the clothes-bars with her ever-ready broomstick, to give him a warm reception, but seeing only his little daughter Meenie, of whom he is very fond, and who also loves ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... all of the Orion's crew from the water and were now hurrying to get to the two men on the Orion, which was fast settling, when a red-haired girl came running from the cabin companionway. Almost as if she had been waiting in ambush, she rushed over to the fallen spar, untangled the halyards from the legs of one of the furthest men, and after an effort lifted the end of the spar so that he could scramble free. She needed to be strong to do that; but she was strong. If she had held the spar up only an instant longer, ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... Danger! Why? Would you watch a man enter a jungle where some hideous beast crouched in ambush, while you neither warned nor armed him? I am here to turn you back. I am the native of that country who runs to cry warning to a stranger; to put into his hand the ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... that they could not rush the house, kept up a siege from the ambush of the pines. Bullets rattled like hailstones against the thick brick walls of the house, and several times the smashing of glass told that windows had been shot in. Harry's blood now grew feverishly hot and his anger mounted with it. It was intolerable that these outlaws ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not heard a sound or caught a motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west, lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in his teeth, he spurred straight for ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... our raid on the oyster pirates, and the pair of them took a hand. We made our arrangements carefully. It was planned that while Charley and I tackled the nets, they were to be hidden ashore so as to ambush the fishermen who landed to shoot ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... maiden, practis'd not To pierce the heart with ambush'd glances, shot From eyelashes, whose shadowy length she knows To a hair's point, their high arch when to close Half o'er the swimming orb, and when to raise, Disclosing all the artificial blaze Of unfelt passion, which alone can move Him, whom the ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... raided the coast, burning and plundering all in their way, and retreated into their ships before Hygelac or Beowulf could overtake and punish them. The immediate result of this invasion was a counter-movement on Hygelac's part. But although he successfully harried Friesland, he fell into an ambush just as he was about to leave the country, and was cruelly slain, his nephew Beowulf barely escaping a similar ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... or to smooth his pillow, now watchfully and warily administering the medicine which stood near the bed. Hilda was not one who would leave any thing to be discovered, even by those who might choose to lurk in ambush and spy at ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... officer in every passing citizen, and at one moment he warned the driver to move more circumspectly, and so avert suspicion, and the next urged him into more desperate bursts of speed. In his fancy every cross street threatened an ambush, and as he cantered now before and now behind the carriage, he wished that he was a multitude of men who could encompass it entirely ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... be to wait in ambush behind the trees of the clearing—I mean for Dugald Shaw and Cuthbert Vane to do it—and shoot down the unsuspecting pirates as they returned. This desperate plan, which so unpleasantly resembled murder, cast ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... of how the Germans had returned and waited in ambush for them outside the fort, capturing them that they might be used to assist in the work of refining the oil and later in manning the U-33, and Plesser told briefly of the experiences of the German crew under von Schoenvorts ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Nimrod, because the mighty hunter before the Lord was jealous of Esau, who also devoted himself assiduously to the chase. Once when he was hunting it happened that Nimrod was separated from his people, only two men were with him. Esau, who lay in ambush, noticed his isolation, and waited until he should pass his covert. Then he threw himself upon Nimrod suddenly, and felled him and his two companions, who hastened to his succor. The outcries of the latter brought the attendants of Nimrod to the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... in the present village of South Deerfield, since called Bloody Brook in memory of the event, the soldiers dispersed somewhat in quest of grapes, then ripe, when a sudden and fatal volley from an ambush was delivered upon them. The men had left their muskets in the wagons and could not regain them. Lothrop was shot dead, and but seven or eight of his company escaped alive. A monument marks the spot where this tragic ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... with each lagging but surely advancing step, soon gave the lie to this latter supposition, since no sane man, afraid of an ambush, would be likely to offer such odds to the one lying in wait for him, as his own face illumined by a flaming candle, and I was yielding to the bewilderment of the moment when the uncertain step paused and a sob came faintly to my ears, wrung from lips so stiff with human anguish ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... face; but still active afoot, still with the brisk military carriage, the ready military salute. Three ways led through this piece of country; and as I was inconstant in my choice, I believe he must often have awaited me in vain. But often enough, he caught me; often enough, from some place of ambush by the roadside, he would spring suddenly forth in the regulation attitude, and launching at once into his inconsequential talk, fall into step with me upon my farther course. "A fine morning, sir, though perhaps a trifle inclining to rain. I hope I ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Canyon after dark, driving his pack-mules before him to detect any possible ambush; and in his nest on the front pack Good Luck stood up like a sentinel, eager to scent out the lurking foe. For the past day and night Good Luck had been uneasy, snuffing the wind and growling in his throat, but the actions of his master had been cause enough for that, for he responded ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... near Jeypore, and the animal ever since has played an important part in the city's pleasures. One inmate of the cages has an authenticated record of ten Indians killed, before His Highness's retainers lured him into ambush and made him a prisoner. "Two days from now," explains one of the men carrying sword and shield, "that tiger there,"—indicating a sullen beast,—"is to fight a wild elephant for the Maharajah's entertainment. Would the sahibs care to ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... plenty's blessings o'er the smiling plain; No power has she, except from shore to shore To bid the ocean's troubled billows roar. With hungry cries the wolf her coming greets; Then Rapine stalks triumphant through the streets; Avarice and Fraud in secret ambush lurk, And Treason's sons their desperate purpose work. But, lo! the Sun with orient splendour ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... by himself from the watchers whom he had placed in ambush on the crest of the hill, and wandered far down the steep slopes amid the wild tangle of undergrowth, peering through the tree trunks and listening through the whistling and skirling of the wind and the restless beating of the branches for sight and sound ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... ranch, while we go back to your laboratory, Eliot, where you'll make the devices and repair the gravity-plates of my suit. Then, four nights from now, if the watcher's seen no one arrive, Ban, Friday and I return and lie in ambush round Tantril's ranch. Awaiting Dr. Ku. When he comes, he'll surely leave his asteroid somewhere near. And while he's at Tantril's, we capture the asteroid—and my promise to the coordinated brains ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... servants now said to Anton, "There is a young plantation on the left as you enter the wood, where a hundred men might lie in ambush without our seeing them, and if there, they would soon snuff us out, or cut off our way ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Love a foeman, Lie in ambush to defeat him; I alone will step to meet him Valiant, his accepted woman. Equal, consort in his car, Ride I ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and traduced! Moralists prattled of his lack of a moral nature; envy tracked him, shooting from ambush! He had become rich and famous. He was the first man in his party. He was young and full of power. He might be President. The sanctimonious quoted Scripture against him. "Where a man's treasure is, there will be his heart also," ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... knew he would make every sacrifice for my repose. I begged him to give over his pursuit, and not to speak to her again. I succeeded this way to defeat the malice of my ill-fortune; but there was still behind another secret ambush, and that of a more fatal nature; for Fosseuse, who was passionately fond of the King my husband, but had hitherto granted no favours inconsistent with prudence and modesty, piqued by his jealousy of my brother, gave herself up suddenly to his will, and unfortunately became ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a sheltered bay skirted by a plain, which could be swept by their guns, and where the Indian warriors would have no opportunity to hide in ambush. Uracca allowed the Spaniards to disembark unopposed. He stationed his troops, several thousand in number, in a hilly country, several leagues distant from the place of landing, which was broken with chasms and vast boulders, and covered ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... Troops in the wedge, began to unroll itself. Fourteen thousand Transvaalers under Joubert, who had first tested the cutting edge by sending a coal truck through the tunnel at Laing's Nek and who suspected an ambush when he found it clear, were moving south on Newcastle, while six thousand Free Staters under Martin Prinsloo were pouring through the Drakensberg passes west of Ladysmith. The Natal Government now began to feel uneasy about ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... their interest to keep it in good repair. As happens in cases of crushing defeats, when the succumbing party must find an excuse and an opportunity for revenge, the powerful Colonnas were accused of high treason, namely, of having led the advance-guard of the Romans into an ambush. Consequently they were banished from the city, and their castle on the Campus Martius was destroyed. Thus ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... night among a clump of pine-trees, with a stream near us, a pond on one side, and a hummock at a little distance. The hummock might conceal a foe; but as the Indians could not possibly know that we should halt in this neighbourhood, it was not likely that they would have laid an ambush there. ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... at that moment the only thing that struck Orso in this particular landscape was one point—an important one, it is true, in his present circumstances. The bareness of the ground rendered any kind of ambush impossible, and the man who has reason to fear that at any moment he may see a gun-barrel thrust out of a thicket straight at his own chest, looks on a stretch of smooth ground, with nothing on it to intercept his view, as a kind of oasis. After this burned maquis came a ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... shared their rations, plain but plentiful at first, at the last only a mouldy crust and a bit of rusty bacon. I have been upon an ambulance-train freighted with human agony delayed for hours by rumors of an enemy in ambush. I have fed men hungry with the ravening hunger of the wounded with scanty rations of musty corn-bread; have seen them drink eagerly of foetid water, dipped from the road-side ditches. Yet they bore it all with supreme ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... the practices of the trade, that his request was granted. Quarmo, however, and his associates, finding things favourable to their design, suddenly seized the captain, threw him overboard, hauled him into their canoe, and dragged him to the shore; where another party of the natives, lying in ambush, seized such of the crew as were absent from the ship. But how did these savages behave, when they had these different persons in their power? Did they not instantly retaliate by murdering them all? No—they only obliged the captain to give an order on the vessel to pay his debts. This ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... Quite possible, if you maintain that seeing is knowing. The confident adversary, suiting the action to the word, shuts one of your eyes; and now, says he, you see and do not see, but do you know and not know? And a fresh opponent darts from his ambush, and transfers to knowledge the terms which are commonly applied to sight. He asks whether you can know near and not at a distance; whether you can have a sharp and also a dull knowledge. While you are wondering at his incomparable wisdom, ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... had saved himself the trouble of even offering a resistance; but he, too, was ill-treated, beaten, and tightly bound. At the beginning of the fight a shrill whistle had brought up four hundred[10] armed soldiers who had lain in ambush round us, concealed behind the innumerable sand-hills and in the depressions in the ground. They took up a position round us and covered us ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... that there were eight Indians in all, not counting the chief whom he had shot. This party of Indians had either killed or captured the white man who had been hunting. Wetzel believed that a part of the Indians would push on with all possible speed, leaving some of their number to ambush the trail or double back on it to see ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... no longer," said Hastings, "for we shall run the risk of an attack where we are, and that would be almost as bad as an ambush." ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... horse, bidding defiance to the clattering hoofs. With mane tossed in the angry wind, and nostrils dilated, the animal neighed with affright, suddenly leaping aside, as a little nest of unknown dangers lurked and rustled in the ambush of a ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Speug would not allow him, because, although they had not yet entered the Indian territory, the crafty foe might have scouts out on this side of the river, and in that case there was no hope of Woody Island. The Indians would be in ambush among the trees on the bank, and the four would be shot ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... had been made vacant by the death of one of his comrades a few nights back, and ordered him to be ready with a picket guard, to march an hour earlier than usual to the fatal out-post, there to place a hat and coat on the branches, and then lie in ambush ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... different.—At 10 o'clock in the evening the First Battalion of the 178th came down into the burning village to the north of Dinant—a saddening spectacle—to make one shiver. At the entrance to the village lay the bodies of some fifty citizens, shot for having fired upon our troops from ambush. In the course of the night many others were shot down in like manner, so that we counted more than two hundred. Women and children, holding their lamps, were compelled to assist at this horrible spectacle. We then sat down midst ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Amazon rajdantino. Ambassador ambasadoro. Amber sukceno. Ambiguous dusenca. Ambition ambicio. Ambitious ambicia. Amble troteti. Ambrosia ambrozio. Ambulance (place) malsanulejo. Ambuscade embusko. Ambush embuski. Ameliorate plibonigi. Amend reformi. Amends, to make rekompenci. America Ameriko. American Amerikano. Amiability amindeco. Amiable afabla, aminda. Amicably pace. Amid meze. Amidst meze. Amity amikeco. Ammonia amoniako. Among inter. Amongst inter. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... whale-boat, so as to be ready to pick us up in case of need. His elder brother, a tall, stout fellow, also preferred to stay in the boat; we left him behind, and this left five of us for the expedition. Macao showed us the way, and as we followed him we watched right and left for a possible ambush. It was a disagreeable moment when we dived into the thicket, where we expected to be attacked any moment, and I could hardly blame another fat boy for dropping behind, too, to "watch the shore," ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... suitors, craving to achieve A prey forbidden, a reluctant bride. Yet power divine shall foil them, and forbid Possession of the maids, whom Argive land Shall hold protected, when unsleeping hate, Horror, and watchful ambush of the night, Have laid the suitors dead, by female hands. For every maid shall smite a man to death, Dyeing a dagger's edges in his throat— Such bed of love befall mine enemies! Yet in one bride ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... AMBUSH (older form, "embush,'' O. Fr. embusche, from the Ital. imboscata, in and bosco, a wood), the hiding of troops, primarily in a wood, and so any concealment for the purpose of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... discovery anything to him? What difference could it make whether Percival Coolidge had died by his own hand, or been treacherously shot from ambush? How would it benefit Natalie Coolidge to have the truth revealed? And, if it would benefit her, why should he devote his time and labour to such an effort? She had cast him off, thrown him aside; her affairs had no further interest for him. Let her lawyer take care ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... vacated camping-ground in search of any odds-and-ends that might have been left about, but more especially ammunition, which used to drop out of our men's pouches in surprising quantities, in spite of the most stringent orders on the subject. On this occasion the Colonel left a small party in ambush when he moved off, with the result that when half-a-dozen Boers began rummaging about in the camp they were suddenly invited to hold their hands up, a request which they had of necessity to comply with, one of them being a Field-Cornet and a man of some local importance. A halt was made ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... is like—no fresh water runs through it, it is green and slimy, and full of insects and dead things; you would not care to bathe in it. Well, still and stuffy air in a house is very much worse, only, unluckily, its dangers cannot be seen, but they are there lying in ambush for the ignorant person. Disease germs, poisonous gases, mildew, insects, dust, and dirt have it all their own way in ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... captured him, Morgan said, bitterly: "Since I have crossed the Ohio I have not seen a single friendly face. Every man, woman, and child I have met has been my enemy; every hill-top a telegraph station to herald my coming; every bush an ambush ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... but a flying column? Swiftness and surprise are our two advantages. We should be like a javelin thrown from ambush that seeks out the enemy's heart. If we fail we are but a lost javelin—an officer, a sepoy, a civilian and a handful of thieves—there are plenty more! If we succeed there is a deed done well and cheaply! I never hunted lions, ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... Monacans as they issued forth. I was soon seen as I knew by their gestures, and uttering a loud shout and waving my gun over my head, I darted off. Being fast of foot, I knew that they could not overtake me; and they probably thought that my object was to lead them into an ambush of the palefaces, for in a short time their cries no longer resounded through the forest, and I felt confident that they had turned back. I was even now on my way to the fort to obtain assistance, but if you will accompany me much time will be saved and we may the ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... thrilling whiffs, and he strained forward to improve his opportunities. The sound of this slight struggle caught the beaver's ear. It stopped work, wheeled, and made for the water hole. The lynx sprang from his ambush, seized the beaver by the back, and held on; but the beaver was double the lynx's weight, the bank was steep and slippery, the struggling animals kept rolling down hill, nearer and nearer the hole. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... better nose than to thrust it into the trap, after the foretokenings we have had. The knave who elbowed me i' the graveyard, as well as the maiden yonder, warned us of some danger at Knowsley, where, I do verily suspect, the rogues are in ambush, waiting for us; but we will give them the slip, and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... with the exception of an occasional reconnoiter of the feeding hares. When the sun began to rise, they came, one by one, from the field to the plantation; three had already come without passing by his ambush, one within twenty yards of him, but he made no movement beyond crouching still more flatly to the ground. Presently two came directly towards him, and though he did not venture to look up, I saw, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... and ordering him to unite with General Houston. That might have been a possible thing with eight hundred and sixty men, but it was not possible with three hundred and sixty. However, we made the effort, and on the great prairie were attacked by the enemy lying in ambush there. Entirely encircled by them, yet still fighting and pressing onward, we defended ourselves until our ammunition gave out. Then we accepted the terms of capitulation offered by Urrea, and were marched back to Goliad as prisoners ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... to be robbed; and indeed robbery at such a time, and in such a place, was a thing I had little reason to expect. But a fellow, who was lying in ambush at the turn of the lane, calculated differently. He imagined nobody to be near, and suddenly presented himself and his pistol, with a ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... He pressed on, and at last, on November 5th, not far from El Obeid, the harassed, fainting, almost desperate army plunged into a vast forest of gumtrees and mimosa scrub. There was a sudden, appalling yell; the Mahdi, with 40,000 of his finest men, sprang from their ambush. The Egyptians were surrounded, and immediately overpowered. It was not a defeat, but an annihilation. Hicks and his European staff were slaughtered; the whole army was slaughtered; ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... was threaten'd to be laid Dead by her side, her love of fame obey'd. In meaner minds ambition works alone; But with such art puts virtue's aspect on, That not more like in feature and in mien, (19)The god and mortal in the comic scene. False Julius, ambush'd in this fair disguise, Soon made the Roman liberties his prize. No mask in basest minds ambition wears, But in full light pricks up her ass's ears: All I have sung are instances of this, And prove my theme unfolded not amiss. Ye vain! desist from your erroneous strife; Be wise, and quit the false ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... for the ambush was at a point where the road passed though a large body of prickly-pear, the terrible thorns of which, in connection with the sharp-pointed leaves of the Spanish-bayonet, formed a natural chevaux-de-frise that no living ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... the enterprise bore them up, and they started off quickly for the house at which Mr Gordon and his pupils lived, which was about half a mile from the school. They went arm in arm to assure each other a little, for at first in their fright they were inclined to take every post and tree for a man in ambush, and to hear a recalling voice in every sound of ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... again to a little village, through which they had already passed, the bell of which was already sounding their death-knell. The constabulary, by turning into the narrow lane at the left, unconsciously approached the very ambush into which the people, or rather their more disciplined leaders, had intended to decoy them. This lane was enclosed by walls, and on one side the ground was considerably elevated and covered with stones, thus affording to ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... horses to carry them. At the last moment, indeed, Jan, whose head was still buzzing with the peach-brandy, insisted upon giving Ralph the great schimmel, that same stallion which Sihamba had ridden when she warned us of the ambush in the pass, galloping twenty miles in the hour. This shows me that Providence can turn even a man's vices to account, for afterwards the ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... abnormal pauses, and unforeseen interruptions, that, time and again, have made of human lives the very thing against which appearances were guarding them, are, it may be providentially, held outside of the range of man's moral vision, and screen themselves in ambush along either side of the seemingly smooth vista, that spans the interval for certain individual human lives, between time ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... of great literary achievement, straight and wonderful, like the roads of the ancient Romans, barbarism torments the mind like a riddle. Yet there are the dusky barbarians!—fleeing from the harmonious tread of the ordered legions, running to hide themselves in the morass of vulgar sentiment, to ambush their nakedness in ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... Summon the priestess to attend me here! Then go with speed, and strictly search the shore, From yon projecting land to Dian's grove: Forbear to violate its sacred depths; A watchful ambush set, attack and seize, According to your wont, whome'er ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... curve, and were safe. As Buck Bradley had surmised, no attempt had been made to wreck the track beyond, the insurrectos having counted, seemingly, on stopping the dash for the Esmeralda by their ambush in ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... underground rooms reserved for the initiated, should be destroyed; and this there was yet time to do, for the soldiers had not yet ventured into those mysterious corridors, where there could not fail to be traps and men in ambush. Memnon meanwhile had hurried to the spot where the battering-ram had by this time dealt a second blow, shouting as he went to every man who was not a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... enterprises, each of which furnishes its stirring tale of hand-to-hand fighting, individual heroism and novel expedients in a country singularly adapted to some of the methods of primeval warfare. Being on the defensive, the Austrians frequently made use of the primitive ambush of mountain tribes. Loose, heavy bowlders were lashed to the edge of a precipice and masked with pine branches. Then when the enemy passed along the mountain path beneath, the wires holding the rocks in place were cut, releasing a deadly ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... did not come to them consciously at the moment, there being little time to think, but it was evident as soon as, diving out of the circle of light into the sheltering darkness, they crouched down and waited for the next move, that a somewhat skilful ambush had been effected. The other members of the gang, who had fled with such remarkable speed, had by no means been eliminated altogether from the game. While the questioning of Mr. Repetto had been in progress, they had crept back, unperceived except by Mr. Repetto himself. It being too dark for ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... their sheep, and performing other little services, and have been rewarded with tobacco. This has given them confidence to a certain degree. But we must expect to meet with others that are equally wild, and who will be very mischievous; attempting to drive off our cattle, and watching in ambush all round our caravan, ready for any pilfering that they can successfully accomplish; and then we shall discover that we are in their ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat |
