"Ambuscade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Our forces let us both unite, Attack the foe at left and right; From Market-Hill's[5] exalted head, Full northward let your troops be led; While I from Drapier's-Mount descend, And to the south my squadrons bend. New-River Walk, with friendly shade, Shall keep my host in ambuscade; While you, from where the basin stands, Shall scale the rampart with your bands. Nor need we doubt the fort to win; I hold intelligence within. True, Lady Anne no danger fears, Brave as the Upton fan she wears;[6] Then, lest upon our first attack Her valiant arm should force us back, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... 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 in the evening. By now the absence ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... 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 with rain, come ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... into Transylvania. They had succeeded in collecting a vast amount of booty, including many fair young maidens and tender youths, and were returning in long cavalcade through the Red Tower Pass. Here, however, they fell into an ambuscade arranged by the men of Herrmannstadt, headed by their burgomaster, the brave George Hecht. At a concerted signal the Saxons rushed upon the despoilers with such a fierce and sudden onslaught, that though the Turks far exceeded them in number, they were completely overpowered. Many a turbaned corpse ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... the drama in full view of the men who lay in ambush. Jugurtha proceeded to the same spot amidst a large retinue of his friends; it had been agreed that all the partners to the conference should come unarmed.[1190] A sign was given, and the men of the ambuscade had sprung from every side upon the mound. Jugurtha's retinue was cut down to a man; the king himself was seized, bound and handed over to Sulla. In a short while he was ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... through the lessons of a military drill; showing them how to fire and fall back, how to advance and retreat, how to form in line of march, how to pitch their tents for a night's encampment, how to lay an Indian ambuscade, how to scale a wall, how to storm a battery; and, in short, forty other evolutions not to be found in any work on military tactics ever written, and at which old Wooden Leg, had he been there, would have shaken his cocked hat with a dubious look. ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... attack them with three regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and two nine-pounders. He thought he should surprise them, and contrived so that he should come upon them about daybreak. Sheo Ratan knew all his plans. He placed one hundred and fifty of his men in ambuscade at the entrance to the jungle, and kept the other hundred and fifty by him in the centre. When they had got well in, the party in ambush rushed upon the rear, while he attacked them in front. After a short resistance, Ghulam Husain's force took to flight, leaving five hundred ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... men out from behind the stockade, while the remainder were concealed in ambush near the spring with which the garrison was supplied with water. The most experienced of the defenders understood the tactics of their wily foes, and shrewdly guessed that an ambuscade had been prepared in order to cut off the garrison from access to the spring. The water in the station was already exhausted, and unless a fresh supply could be obtained the most dreadful sufferings were apprehended. It was thought probable that the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... 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 assist the fair lady, cloaked and hooded, into the carriage, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Twice she heft her 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 ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... 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
... equal discrimination. In the former case a spot is selected at the descent or ascent of a hill, so that the carriage of the victim cannot be going at a sufficient pace to defeat the marksman's aim, and a conveniently protected angle, with facilities for escape, is occupied by the ambuscade. In the latter, either a natural amphitheatre or a conspicuous hill is pitched upon for the gathering. To the picturesque Mayo mind a park meeting on a dead flat would be the most uninteresting affair possible unless vitality were infused into the ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... century, were able to hew these 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 ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... Turk before him, he backed toward the shadowed recess, with the one idea of shielding Cara. But the darker spot was the door behind which Sayed Ayoub lay in ambuscade, and as Karyl reached it, it swung open, showing them against a background as bright as though they were painted on ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... 'The ambuscade shall be laid in the very same place where the infamous one concealed you in order to expose me to your gaze. At the approach of night I shall turn back one of the folding-doors upon you, undress myself, lie down, and when ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "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 a Doomsman ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... ranging them comfortably around the many hay and straw stacks of the neighborhood. Inquiry revealed that a reconnoitring party, misled by the apparent quiet of the other side, had crossed, fallen into an ambuscade, and under the most galling of fires, artillery and musketry, kept up most unmercifully by the advancing rebels, who thus ungraciously repaid the courtesy shown them the day after Antietam—had been compelled to recross that most difficult ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... 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 Aeneid • Virgil
... 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 angry eyes discovered that they were ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... take for this?" answered the cautious soldier—"A man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an ambuscade." ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... imaginative nor of a romantic turn of mind; but, the circumstances reviewed, it's nothing to his discredit that he entertained a passing suspicion of some curious conspiracy against the girl, thought of an ambuscade, and with quick eyes raked the surroundings for signs of a confederate ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... war chief, named tienne Annaotaha, whose life is described as a succession of conflicts and adventures, and who is said to have been always in luck, landed with a few companions, and fell into an ambuscade of the Iroquois. He prepared to defend himself, when they called out to him, that they came not as enemies, but as friends, and that they brought wampum-belts and presents to persuade the Hurons to forget the past, go back with them to ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... Having formerly been at war with Cyrus, and afterwards reconciled to him, he now made a conspiracy to destroy him. he made a proposal to Cyrus: if Cyrus would furnish him with a thousand horsemen, he would deal with these troopers, who were burning down everything in front of them; he would lay an ambuscade and cut them down, or he would capture a host of them alive; in any case, he would put a stop to their aggressiveness and burnings; he would see to it that they did not ever get a chance of setting eyes on Cyrus's army and reporting ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... uncle, and Andrew was assisting to fill a spring-cart with pumpkins. This vehicle had arrived under guidance of a tall, fair young man with perfect teeth and a pleasant smile, which kept them well before the public, seeing they were not concealed by any hirsute ambuscade, regarding the adorning qualities of which Dawn and her grandmother were divided. The former came out to inform Andrew that the pony had to be harnessed, as Mrs Clay had promised Miss Flipp she could drive her uncle back to catch ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... due in part to the courage, skill, and superior numbers of the Navajos and in part to the character of the country, which is easily defended, as the routes of travel along the canyons present excellent opportunities for defense and ambuscade. But under the leadership and by the advice of Kit Carson these Indians were ultimately conquered. This wily but brave frontiersman recommended a new method of warfare, which was to destroy the herds and flocks of ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... 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 homeward with ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... intended to place his men in ambuscade at the ford, but, owing to various delays caused by the Indians, he was still a mile away from the ford when the British crossed. He was marching forward when he came suddenly upon the little party of guides ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... one or two guns had been let off, but happily they did no mischief. We had hailed them several times; but they not hearing, we received no answer, which was the cause of our firing. The boat was then sent on board of her, and she proved to be the Ambuscade man of war, to my no small disappointment. We returned to Portsmouth, without having been in any action, just at the trial of Admiral Byng (whom I saw several times during it): and my master having left the ship, and gone to London for ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... resolved and prepared.' He admitted the 'intent was particular against Sir Walter Ralegh and others.' He thought this a proof that 'it was no matter of treason against her Majesty, but rather a manifestation of the contrary.' Essex gave out that his rising was prompted by a discovery that there was an ambuscade of musketeers placed upon the water by the device of Lord Cobham and Ralegh, to murder him in the way as he passed. Blount, at his trial, confessed there was no foundation for the allegation. In reply to Cecil, who ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... the cathedral and placed himself in ambuscade at the corner of the Rue des Canettes; it was impossible that Bazin should go out of the cathedral without his ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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
... 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 his cavalry from Lychnidus at nightfall, ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... 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
... breaks a 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, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... less than 250,000 persons, only about 100,000 crossed into Asia Minor. The fate of these was no better than that of those who had perished in Hungary and Bulgaria. After grievous suffering and loss they at last reached Nicaea. There they fell into an ambuscade; and out of the whole of the undisciplined masses who had followed Peter the Hermit, it is doubtful whether 10,000 ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... opaque blackness in an almost unknown town. The silence is terrifying in its possibilities. The touch of cold window bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch of a toad; the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and bewildering appearances, as if to lead him further from his way. For Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was real danger ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... ambuscade That the twining vines had made, They found the grapes, in clusters, Drinking up the shine and shade— Plumpt like tiny skins of wine, With a vintage so divine That the tongue of fancy tingled With ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... herself but also—which had certainly not been in her mind before—to keep her husband away from herself. Something latent in the situation had surprised her with this effect. It had arisen out of the quarrel like a sharpshooter out of an ambuscade. Her right to go out alone had now only the value of a mere pretext for far more extensive independence. The ultimate extent of these independences, she still dared ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... 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
... and they to take the residue. But inasmuch as the convoy across the moors, under his command, would be strong, and strongly armed, the Doones must be sure to send not less than a score of men, if possible. He himself, at a place agreed upon, and fit for an ambuscade, would call a halt, and contrive in the darkness to pour a little water into the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... extreme heat of the sun by day, and the heavy dews at nightfall. As the sea-breeze and the flood-tide set in, the boats again started and proceeded up the river. It was ascertained the war-canoes were beyond where the Panda was first taken; for fear of an ambuscade great caution was observed in proceeding. "As we approached a point, a single native was observed standing near a hut erected near the river, who, as we approached, beckoned, and called for us to land. We endeavored to do so, but fortunately the water ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... dervishes of principle, who rushed on the bayonets in the name of manhood and truth and sincerity. Godwin when he came in his systematic treatise to describe how a free people would conduct a defensive war, declared that it would scorn to resort to a stratagem or an ambuscade. In the same spirit Holcroft hearing that a warrant was out against him for high treason, walked boldly into the Chief Justice's court, and announced that he came to be put upon his trial "that if I am a guilty man, the whole extent of my guilt may become ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... successfully "tackle" with his little detachment. The major rejoiced that the captain was sensible enough to discontinue the pursuit at the Niobrara crossing. Beyond that there were numerous ridges, winding ravines, even a shallow canyon or two,—the very places for ambuscade; and it would be an easy matter for a small party of the Sioux to drop back and give the pursuers a bloody welcome. No! Terry had done admirably so long as there was a chance of square fighting, and his subsequent moves, barring the one dash down-stream after ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... 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
... Leaving the party in ambuscade below, I ascended the butte, to obtain a view of the surrounding country. The day had now fairly broken, and the sun was just rising over the ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... glory in falling in an ambuscade. It is a death which always implies a little rashness or want of foresight. Often, indeed, he who falls in one meets with but little pity. Those who are not pitied, Raoul, have died to little purpose. Still further, the conqueror laughs, and ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Salernum, which are far superior to the empire of the East, are quite equal to the gay scarf which a municipal authority wears, and the uneasiness with which a Jacobin journalist returns to his home in the evening, fearing always lest he should fall into an ambuscade of the cut-throats of the general. For me it was not to establish two chambers that I first mounted the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... rally to the fragrant cedar's shade The settler's crafty foe, With toilsome march and midnight ambuscade To lay his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... Clennam was at the cottage, the Dowager Mrs Gowan drove up, in the Hampton Court equipage which pretended to be the exclusive equipage of so many individual proprietors. She descended, in her shady ambuscade of green fan, to favour Mr and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Breakfast over, the work of landing the troops 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 transports bearing the soldiers for the land attack. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... original intention, the result might have been more favorable to the French, for the former would then have been the attacking party and have borne the brunt of the battle. As it was, the French commander nearly succeeded in drawing the thousand men that Johnson had sent out to meet him into an ambuscade, and among the slain was brave Colonel Williams, commander of the Provincials in this engagement, and gallant Chief Hendrick, who had accompanied him ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... their ambuscade, they came to a mill on the skirt of the forest and saw the farm burning amid the starlight. Here, under some huge oaks, in front of a frozen pool, they ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... what 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 of ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... passed by, their famous captain at 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
... where the 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, ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston
... have cured the almost total blindness of Bertram, son of Hugo de Jubilet, after the disease had baffled the skill of the Saracen and Christian-Syrian physicians of his day. Now Littre avers that a certain Hugo de Jubilet was involved in an ambuscade in Syria in the year 1227, and that he had a son named Bertram. It is very natural, of course, to conclude that this Bertram was the patient recorded in the book of Gilbert. Kingsford says that Gilbert "met" Bertram in Syria, but the text of the Compendium ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... and of having things outside in the best posture possible, he eluded the guardships of the Athenians and sailed out. Remaining among the Chalcidians, he continued to carry on the war; in particular he laid an ambuscade near the city of the Sermylians, and cut off many of them; he also communicated with Peloponnese, and tried to contrive some method by which help might be brought. Meanwhile, after the completion of the investment of Potidaea, Phormio next employed his sixteen ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... days of travel we encountered herds of buffalo and mustangs or wild horses, and when our scouts reported numerous Indian signs, we advanced slowly and carefully, momentarily expecting an ambuscade and attack. Our column halted frequently while our horsemen explored suspicious-looking ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... and I stepped lightly, so as not to leave much mark, on some dried grass, and made off up the side of the draw, among the bushes. These grew as high as our shoulders, and formed a fine ambuscade. We climbed far enough so that we could see both sides of the draw and the trail in between; and by crawling we picked a good spot ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... 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 ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... stride and bethought him of shelter. He travelled a road that faithfully followed the convolutions of the levee, running along its base, but whither he knew not. Bushes and rank grass crowded it to the wheel ruts, and out of this ambuscade the pests of the lowlands swarmed after him, humming a keen, vicious soprano. And as the night grew nearer, although colder, the whine of the mosquitoes became a greedy, petulant snarl that shut out all other sounds. To his right, against the heavens, he ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Bey, after his successes in Arabia, invaded Syria and wrested that province from the power of the sultan. The victorious soldier, however, now plotted against his master and took the lead in a military revolt. As a result of this, Ali Bey fell into an ambuscade set by his own rebellious subjects, and died from poisoning m 1786. Thus terminated the career of the famous Mamluk, a man whose energy, talents, and ambition bear a strong resemblance to those of ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... then on the island. He withdrew to his fort 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... was soon checked; the cannon from the fortress forced them to retire as far off as the isle of Upe. In the mean time, seven poor fishermen, who had been out all night about their employment, and were now returning to the town, fell into an ambuscade of the Infidels, were taken, and brought before the general. After he had cut off their ears and noses, he sent them back with a letter, directed to Don Francisco de Melo, governor of Malacca, of which these ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... and made five hours only, because to-morrow there is no herbage until late in the evening. How tantalising to be obliged to advance thus by short stages towards an ambuscade! We take things pretty philosophically, however, and make geological observations. Overweg (who begins to show signs of weakness) is delighted that we have at length reached a region of granite. I think I must have passed a great number of rocks of the same kind between Ghadamez ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... the sudden torrents peculiar to that country, and which, winding among the trees and copse-wood, formed, as it were, a net of places of concealment, opening into each other, so that there was perhaps no place in the world so fit for the purpose of ambuscade. The spot where the borderer Turnbull had made his escape at the hunting match, was one specimen of this broken country, and perhaps connected itself with the various thickets and passes through which ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... and 9th Tennessee of my brigade—aggregating nearly six hundred men—and also the two pieces of artillery. These regiments were moved beyond Burkesville and placed in a position which served all the purposes of an ambuscade. When the enemy approached, one or two volleys caused his column to recoil in confusion. General Morgan instantly charged it with Quirk's scouts and some companies of the 9th Tennessee, and not only prevented it from rallying, but drove it all the way back to Marrowbone, entering the encampment ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... under Lieutenant-Colonel Frizell very cleverly succeeded in drawing into an ambuscade a body of Floyd's cavalry under Colonel A. G. Jenkins. The principal body of our men lined a defile near the Hawk's Nest, and the skirmishers, retreating before the enemy, led them into the trap. Our men began firing ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... son of Priam, whom he had captured in an ambuscade, that Troy could not be taken unless both Philoctetes and Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, could be prevailed upon to join the besiegers. The former, having been stung in the foot by a serpent, and becoming insupportable to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... they dwelt on the Kabompo river, 200 m. to the N.E. of their present country, and here the descendants of a section of the tribe which did not migrate still remain, under the name Balokwakwa (men of the ambuscade), formerly known as Aalukolui. That the Barotse at a still more remote period emigrated from the far north-east is indicated by vague tradition as well as by a certain similarity in type and language to some tribes living in that direction, though the fact that natives from Mashonaland can ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... communicate with the support. As in enemy's country the roads are likely to be waylaid, patrols are sent out to investigate any flanking hill, or wood, or group of buildings, behind which a party could be hiding. You can imagine the grim interest in trying to walk into an ambuscade. I company's patrols having failed to locate the enemy in his last concealment, we were particularly anxious to make ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... the herdsmen departed, trotting rapidly off toward the village, but they stopped every here and there, at all the highest spots on the road, as though they were looking out for some hidden ambuscade, always keeping near enough to Orso and his sister to be able to come to their assistance if necessary. And old Polo ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... ambush was captured and killed. This so excited the Indians that they raised the war-whoop. Fifty English soldiers were sent from the fort to ascertain the occasion of the yelling, and were drawn into the ambuscade. A volley from the woods on either side swept them down, and before the remainder could recover from the panic into which they were thrown by the volley, they were assailed with swords, bayonets and tomahawks, and but four out of the party escaped ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... if the Nicaraguans meant to fight, they would place an ambush in the dense jungle along the river, and from this place of concealment harass the flotilla before it got within gunshot of the fort. This ambuscade could easily fall back upon the fort if directly attacked and defeated. This, the young man argued was what he himself would have done had he been in command of the Nicaraguan forces, so it naturally occurred to him to discover ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... 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 Howe and Clinton, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... 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 young ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... thundering round the curve, 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. Burt stabbed at the sergeant and struck him through the muscle ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... comes on, you shall order fifteen or twenty men, under the command of your sergeant La Place, to be under arms, and to lay themselves flat on the ground, between this place and the head-quarters." "What the devil!" cried Matta, "an ambuscade? God forgive me, I believe you intend to rob the poor Savoyard. If that be your intention, I declare I will have nothing to say to it" "Poor devil!" said the Chevalier, "the matter is this; it is very likely that we shall win his money. The ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... would terrify, And cause them from their lairs to fly. And, sooth, the horrid noise the creature made Did strike the tenants of the wood with dread; And, as they headlong fled, All fell within the Lion's ambuscade. "Has not my service glorious Made both of us victorious?" Cried out the much-elated Ass. "Yes," said the Lion; "bravely bray'd! Had I not known yourself and race, I should have been myself afraid!" The Donkey, had he dared, With anger would ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... followers arrive, and Robin Hood offers the money to redeem Sir Richard's bond; but, upon a legal quibble, the Abbot declines to receive it—preferring to seize the forfeited land. Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham appear, and Robin and his Foresters form an ambuscade. Sir Richard Lea has been brought in, upon his litter, and Marian stays beside him. Prince John attempts to seize her, but this time he is frustrated by the sudden advent of King Richard—from whose presence he slinks away. The myrmidons ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... of their commanders, set in irresistibly against them, before taking refuge inside the walls of the city. An hour after parting from Mr. Chambers I am wheeling briskly down the same road on the eastern slope of the pass where Mukhtar Pasha's ill-fated column was drawn into the fatal ambuscade that suddenly turned the fortunes of the day against them. While rapidly gliding down the gentle gradient, I fancy I can see the Cossack regiments, advancing toward the Turkish position, the unwary and over-confident Osmanlis ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... 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 feeling ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... they had been in a manner 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 by this Burgundian party of men at arms, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 made prisoners of some spies who had been sent ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... 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 Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... Xenophon and the rear-guard, on hearing it, thought that some new enemies were assailing the front, for in the rear, too, the people from the country that they had burnt were following them, and the rear-guard, by placing an ambuscade, had killed some, and taken others prisoners, and had captured about twenty shields made of raw ox-hides with the hair on. 23. But as the noise still increased, and drew nearer, and as those who came up from time to time kept running at full speed to join those who were continually shouting, ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... Punic war. Hannibal and his forces pitched camp at Lake Trasimenus last night. They prepared an ambuscade for the Romans, and a battle took place at the fourth watch this morning. ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... to attend the forthcoming State Temperance Alliance which held its second annual meeting February 20, and to which a dozen of us went bearing credentials. It was evident from the first that trouble was brewing. The enemy had had a whole year to prepare an ambuscade of which our party had no suspicion. A Committee on Credentials was appointed with instructions to rule the woman suffrage delegation out of the Alliance as a "disturbing element." Hon J. Quinn Thornton was chairman of that committee. In his report he declared all delegations to be satisfactory ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... body of the regiment was marching leisurely along the road, when bang, debang, debang, bang, and a volley of buck and ball came hurling right through the two advance companies of the regiment—companies H and K. We had marched into a Yankee ambuscade. ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... named Andrew Grear, who lived at Watauga, had been at Echota. He had disposed of his wares, and was about to return with the furs he had taken in exchange, when he perceived signs of hostile feeling among some of the young warriors, and on his return, fearing an ambuscade on the great war-path, he left it before he reached the crossing at the French Broad, and went homeward by a less-frequented trail along the Nolachucky. Two other traders, named Boyd and Dagget, who left Echota on the following day, pursued the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... the table, and light scaled cuirass, which I will do on under my toga. I shall be there at the fourth hour precisely; but it were well that ye should be on your posts by the second hour or soon after. For it may be, he too will lay an ambuscade, and so ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... enemy then condensed his forces and crossed the bridge, and was encountered on the plains of Chippewa by Scott, with his brigade, when the action became severe and general. No ambuscade or masked batteries were held in reserve—the enemy was not a moment concealed from our view—no tangled thicket or umbrageous groves gave effect or facility to our rifles: the battle was fought on a plain—where man grappled man, force was opposed to ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah
... January 1567 Sampiero was slain in an ambuscade laid for him in the defile of Cauro, into which he had been led by forged letters brought him by the monk ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black
... say, to this stifling of all complaints and of all light, no man, no fact wears its true aspect or bears its true name. M. Bonaparte's crime is not a crime, it is called a necessity; M. Bonaparte's ambuscade is not an ambuscade, it is called a defence of public order; M. Bonaparte's robberies are not robberies, they are called measures of state; M. Bonaparte's murders are not murders, they are called public safety; ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... of whatever kind it may be, an individual suspected of any crime is arrested, the arrest is held secret. Four or five men are placed in ambuscade in the first room. The door is opened to all who knock. It is closed after them, and they are arrested; so that at the end of two or three days they have in their power almost all the HABITUES of the establishment. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the stranger, "it seems that I have gone astray; if the chateau is on the other side, where can I establish my ambuscade?" ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... Beaujeu, Captain, intrusted with the ambuscade at the battle of the Monongahela, i. 166; death of, in the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... parties under captain Mason and captain Ogal decoyed within the Indian lines and cut to pieces, Girty demands the surrender of Wheeling, Col. Zane's reply, Indians attacks the fort and retire, Arrival of col. Swearingen with a reinforcement, of captain Foreman, Ambuscade at Grave creek narrows, conspiracy of Tories discovered and defeated, Petro and White taken prisoners, Irruption into Tygarts Valley, Murder at ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... father captured James and held him in degrading captivity. He escaped, and was reconciled to his gaoler, who, in 1584, again conspired, and was executed, while the Ruthven lands were forfeited. By a new revolution (1585-1586) the Ruthvens were reinstated. In July 1593 Gowrie's mother, by an artful ambuscade, enabled the Earl of Bothwell again to kidnap the King. In 1594 our Gowrie, then a lad, joined Bothwell in open rebellion. He was pardoned, and in August 1594 went abroad, travelled as far as Rome, studied at Padua, and, summoned by the party ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... authority. The very night before the column reaches the borders of the reservation the leading chiefs come in camp to interview the officers, shake hands, beg tobacco, and try on their clothes, then go back to their braves and laugh as they tell there are only a handful, and plan the morrow's ambuscade and massacre. Vae victis! There are women and children among the garrisons along the Union Pacific whose hearts have little room for thoughts of germans in the horror of this morning's tidings. But Sibley is miles and miles away, and, as Mrs. Wheeler says, aren't ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... think long over the best way quickly to awaken the love of the page, and had soon discovered the natural ambuscade in the which the most wary are taken. This is how: at the warmest hour of the day the good man took his siesta after the Saracen fashion, a habit in which he had never failed, since his return from the Holy Land. During this time ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... combat, and 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 ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... council of war, they rose up and marched towards Mansoul; but all in a manner invisible, save only Diabolus, who approached the town in the shape and body of a dragon. So they drew up and sat down before Eargate, and laid their ambuscade for Mr. Resistance within a bow shot of the town. Then Diabolus, being come to the gate, sounded his trumpet for audience, at which the chiefs of the town, such as my lord Innocent, my lord Will-be-will, Mr. Recorder, and Captain Resistance, came down to the wall to see who was there and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... 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 ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... "black" train. Two engines were attached to a troop-train, and Jewett seated himself on the pilot of the forward locomotive. The lights were all put out. They were to have no pilot engine, but were to slip past the ambuscade, if possible, and take chances on lifted rails and absent bridges. It was near the end of a dark, rainy night. The train was rolling along at a good freight clip, the engines working as full as might be without ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... in the city. When Dragut returned, the siege had gone on for a month, without result; a tremendous assault had been repulsed with heavy loss to the besiegers, who were growing disheartened. The Corsair assembled a body of Moors and Turks and attempted to relieve the fortress; but his ambuscade failed, His[a]r's simultaneous sally was driven back, and Dragut, seeing that he could do nothing, fled to Jerba. His retreat gave fresh energy to the siege, and a change of attack discovered the weak places of the defence. ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... ready to fall, not only upon their enemies, but also on their neighbours, in the hope either of robbing them when off their guard, or of obtaining a ransom for any unwary traveller who might fall into their hands. Everywhere society was in ambuscade, and waged civil war—individual against individual—without peace or mercy. Such was the reign of feudalism. It is unnecessary to point out how this system of perpetual petty warfare tended to reduce the power of centralisation, and how royalty itself was weakened towards ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... 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 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Ottawa from the Great Beyond shortly after Radisson returned from Onondaga. Six of these Algonquins had brought their furs to Three Rivers. Some emissaries had gone to Quebec to meet the governor; but the majority of the Indians remained at Montreal to avoid the ambuscade of the Mohawks on Lake St. Peter. Radisson and Groseillers were not the only Frenchmen conspiring to wrest fame and fortune from the Upper Country. When the Indians came back from Quebec, they were ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... further aggravated by the commission of actual hostilities within the territories of the United States. The ship Grange, a British vessel which had been cleared out from Philadelphia, was captured by the French frigate L'Ambuscade within the capes of the Delaware, while on her way to ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... and shut lips,—dumb prayers, wrung out of some depth within, such as Christian sent out of the slough, when he was like to die. But he did stop at the tavern, and there drank some brandy to steady his nerves; and he did not forget that there was an ambuscade of Rebels at Blue's Gap, and that he was to share in the attack on them at daylight: he spurred his horse, as he drew nearer Romney. Dode, being a woman, thinking love lost, sat by the fire, looking vacantly at nothing. Yet the loss was as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... happened to be squirrel-hunting, and he stepped into the road to get a good view of them. He was well grown for his age, and his single-barrelled shot-gun looked like a rifle. The revenue men halted at once. They suspected an ambuscade. Experience had taught them that the Moonshiners would fight when the necessity arose, and they held a council of war. The great gawky boy, with the curiosity of youth and ignorance combined, stood in ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... that a force of the enemy were in front, and that several men had been observed going into the woods on the right. A search was made of the bush, but as the shades of night had fallen fast it was impossible to grope through the woods, and fearing an ambuscade Col. Peacocke resolved to halt his column for the night. In the meantime he had sent two companies of the 16th Regiment to scour the woods, but owing to the darkness they were unable to do so. Having been told by some person that a bridge ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... arroyo which the waters of the rainy season had cut deep into the soft, powdery soil. Upon either bank grew cacti and mesquite, forming a sheltering screen behind which a regiment might have hidden. The place was ideal for an ambuscade. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... have been a warlike people, despite their own traditions. Sporadic forays, fostered by their ignorant dread of one another or stirred up by rival medicine-men, there may have been between different tribes—and there certainly were between the Indians and the Esquimaux—with ambuscade and slaughter of isolated hunting parties that ventured too far beyond the confines of their own territory; and one such affair would furnish tradition for generations to dilate upon. I have myself found all the men of Nulato gone scouting, ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... could penetrate. The general width was about forty feet, and occasionally it diminished so as not to allow the passage of more than five or six persons abreast. In short, there could be no place in the world better adapted for the consummation of an ambuscade, and it was no more than natural that we should look carefully to our arms as we entered upon it. When I now think of our egregious folly, the chief subject of astonishment seems to be, that we should have ever ventured, under any circumstances, so ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of a dog, but the heart of a stag, never hast thou at any time dared in soul to arm thyself with the people for war, nor to go to ambuscade with the chiefs of the Greeks; for this always appears to thee to be death. Certainly it is much better through the wide army of the Achaeans, to take away the rewards of whoever may speak against thee. ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... into the confessional. What kind of a figure should I cut among the monks? And if I were to meet the abbot on the way, how could I help returning with him? If I had had a trusty friend I would have arranged an ambuscade and carried off my charmer. It would have been an easy task, as she had nobody to defend her. What if I were to pluck up my heart and beg them to let me sup in their company? I was afraid of the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... type is always hard to catch, and it's bad judgment to try to catch him until you have evidence enough to hang him. So, for the present, I'm certain that we'd better let the scoundrel go. But the flying of that kite means that there's danger of an ambuscade. This is the first time I've commanded in the field and I don't intend to be ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... 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 was rough for their voyage. No river is like this, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... bushmen, whose advance had been, and still was, very slow and cautious, as if they dreaded an ambuscade, had approached to within seventy yards of the house. Thinking them yet too distant to make sure of them, we allowed them to come nearer. They did so; but they had now assumed a stealthy step, walking lightly, as if they feared that their footfalls ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... and him three parts asleep, 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! In the mirk night, with his broken bridle and his ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... places, they would not do so in places not to their advantage. Thus the path was cleared, upon this day, without encountering any enemy or sighting their fort. Again the men returned to the fleet for the night. On the third day, as the work of reconnoitering was proceeding, a large ambuscade of Indians attacked us in the open near a palm-grove. As was learned later, they numbered about two thousand. They attacked us with the greatest fury and determination, in small bodies of skilful troops. As the soldiers were ordered immediately ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... crew blazed up immediately. My shipmates were eager, too eager. As it turned out, their precipitancy was to cost them their chance of victory, for they began to riot while the three tradesmen were still handy to the roundhouse door, though, indeed, they had no knowledge, as had I, of the captain's ambuscade. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... quickly done. Scarce has the ambuscade been set, when the trampling of horses heard down the defile tells of a cavalcade coming up, and presently the foremost files appear rounding an angle of rock. Dim as is the light, the horseman leading can be told to be the young Tovas cacique, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... 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 McPhail, and a ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... now looked through the hole to test the truth of the prognostication. The hour of five completed itself on their watches; the girl again came forward. And then the three in ambuscade could see her pull out her handkerchief and place it to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... era of agony that minute, in which, after avoiding the ambuscade that he felt sure awaited him at the door, he had nothing on earth he could do but wait and see what ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... 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
... 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 those born and bred on the soil, it is obvious that there ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland |
