"Ambush" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like a mist of facts thickening between him and the vision of love and faith. It vanished; and looking at that face triumphant and scornful, at that white face, stealthy and unexpected, as if discovered staring from an ambush, he was coming back slowly to the world of senses. His first clear thought was: I am married to that woman; and the next: she will give nothing but what I see. He felt the need not to see. But the memory of the vision, the memory that abides forever within ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... Messire Gawain. Thereupon is he armed, and taketh leave of the lady and issueth forth of the fair hold and setteth him in an ambush in the forest nigh thereby. Straightway behold the jealous knight where he cometh, he and his dwarf. He entereth into the hall. The lady cometh to ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... in 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 it. So ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... were bristling with chaparral. Behind any scrub oak or cedar, under cover of an aspen thicket or even of a clump of gray sage, an enemy with murder in his heart might be lurking. Here an ambush was much more likely than in the sun-scorched plain ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... slid into the water when we were close beside them, then rose to the surface to stare curiously when we had passed. We left them undisturbed. Some geese decoyed us into an attempt to ambush them, but they kept always just out of reach of our ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... being ambushed by Forrest," said Warner, speaking from a swollen countenance. "Instead we struck something worse; we rode straight into an ambush of ten billion high-powered mosquitoes, every one tipped with fire. Have we got enemies like these to fight ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... unlike a Gothic chapel, and sufficiently spacious to contain twenty men. The care with which the hollow had been swept out, and the neighbourhood of a salt spring, showed that it was used by the Indian hunters as a resting-place and ambush. Canondah cautiously approached the tree and returned to Rosa with the intelligence that it was unoccupied. From the branches of a neighbouring cypress, the two girls now stripped quantities of Spanish moss, wherewith ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... of the antelope. These were pegged down in all directions, and at all angles, to a distance of 25 to 30 feet from the tree. The carts and bullocks were sent off into a road about a mile away. An ambush was made of bushes and branches some fifty or sixty yards away, and here, when the time came, I and three Vardis ensconced ourselves. I have sat near some dirty fellows in my life, but the stench of those three men baffles description; you could cut it with a knife. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... cunning. They are seldom seen in the herd itself, but they are generally within a few hundred paces; and just as the guns may have been discharged at the herd, the rogue will, perhaps, appear in full charge from his ambush. This is exquisitely dangerous, and is the manner in which I was caught ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... had been bringing up the rear of the column, now came running to the scene, and on hearing the details of the ambush ordered the men to follow him, and ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... most dreadful adventure that had then ever happened to us. Even Alice had now stopped thinking of Mr Richard Ravenal, and thought only of the lurker in ambush. ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... something; it was natural, perhaps, to jump to the conclusion that it concerned these robberies, but Quarles's arguments did not altogether convince me. I had half a dozen men hunting for young Squires, who had almost certainly led us into an ambush that night and who had disappeared completely. His old haunts had not known him for a long time; his old companions had lost sight of him. It was generally understood that he had cut his old ways and ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... little wood, where they seemed to be seeking refuge. Caesar followed close on their heels up to the edge of the forest; then suddenly the pursued turned right about face, three or four hundred archers came out of the wood to help them, and Caesar's men, seeing that they had fallen into an ambush, took to their heels like ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... scene take place on shipboard, and, if we except the "comites" of Aglaosthenes, in none of them is the god accompanied by a retinue of satyrs. But Philostratus[88] pretends to describe a painting, in which two Page 46 ships are portrayed, the pirate-craft lying in ambush for the other, which bears ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... began to suspect something. The women of the people, even the poorest, are so quick at picking a costume to pieces! When Madame Risler went out, about three o'clock, fifty pairs of sharp, envious eyes, lying in ambush at the windows of the polishing-shop, watched her pass, penetrating to the lowest depths of her guilty conscience through her black velvet dolman and her cuirass ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... practised in the province of Abancay. A fresh cow-hide, with some fragments of flesh adhering to it, is spread out on one of the level heights, and an Indian provided with ropes creeps beneath it, whilst some others station themselves in ambush near the spot, ready to assist him. Presently a condor, attracted by the smell of flesh, darts down upon the cow-hide, and then the Indian, who is concealed under it, seizes the bird by the legs, and binds ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... The financial warfare is more diabolical than the old literal warfare, but quite as entertaining. There is really as much romance connected with bills of exchange as with swords and lances, and rigging the market is nothing but the modern form of lying in ambush. Goneril and Regan are triumphant; but we may admire the grace of their manners and the dexterity with which they cloak their vices. Iago not only poisons Othello's peace of mind, but, in the world of Balzac, he ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... out on a buying trip. We could have a couple of men posted in the hills overlooking Careba, and they could send a message-ball through to Police Terminal. Then, a party could be sent with a mobile conveyer to ambush Nebu-hin-Abenoz on the way, and wipe out his party. Our people could take their horses and clothing and go on to take the ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... degraded and vicious kind, frequented by the lowest of the black population of Ann street. At that period, respectable public houses for the exclusive accommodation of the colored aristocracy, were very rare; and it is only recently that the enterprise and public spirit of Mr. William E. Ambush has established a recherche and elegant Saloon in Belknap street, bearing the poetical cognomen of "The Gazelle." We allude to this latter place for the purpose of showing that however degraded may be the colored ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... that something had happened. A general tumult arose. They looked at us with indignation—talked among themselves for a moment, when several cocked their guns; in a second they fired at us in the crowd; our companion fell dead. We rushed through the crowd and made our escape. We remained in ambush but a short time, before we heard yelling, like Indians running an enemy. In a little while we saw some of the whites in full speed. One of them came near us. I threw my tomahawk and struck him on the head, which brought him to the ground. I ran to him and with his own knife took off ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... bent and swayed under the west wind that swept over the meadows. They grew much taller than our heads, and we boys loved to play in them, to track the tiger or the grizzly to its lair, not without creeping shudders at the peril that might lie in ambush at the next turn; or, hidden deep down among them, we lay and watched the white clouds go overhead and listened to the reeds whispering of the great days and deeds ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... men that winds along the road through the dark into the unknown. As he plods on he speculates how the fight will start. Perhaps the kopjes on either side of the road may be already full of Boers. Perhaps the beginning of the fight will be to find that they have marched into another ambush. It was a nasty uncomfortable feeling, that tramping through the darkness into the unknown. He felt better as the light spread from the eastern hills, and felt companionship and security in being part and parcel of that great mass of men that extended before and ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... geography lesson was a hard one, and so they played "hooky," and, taking their guns with them, hid in the bushes at the top of the hill. Then, as the birds struck the hill, and beat their way up over the brow of it, the boys, lying in ambush, had only to fire into the flock without taking aim, and the birds would drop all around them. The discharge of the guns made Bob Holliday so hungry for pigeon pot-pie, that he, too, ran away from school, at recess, and took his place among the pigeon-slayers in ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... on a bit of wood directions to his wife to give the bearer some cotton, but the man insisted that he must come himself to give out some medicine for a sick man. Mr. Gordon complied, walking in front as far as the place where lay the ambush, when the man struck him with a tomahawk on the spine, and he fell, with a loud scream, while the others leaping out fell upon him with blows that must have destroyed life at once, yelling and screaming over him. Another went up to the house. Mrs. Gordon had come out, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gone out to see Babet; I knew she came to the parsonage every night, and I went and placed myself in ambush behind a hedge. I had got rid of my timidness of the morning; I considered it quite natural to be waiting for her there, because she loved me and I had to tell ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... mind to ambush the Californians on their way back to their camp at Vienna. He had plans, involving a length of rope, for his former trooper, Binns. The next morning, having crossed Bull Run Mountain the night before, he took ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper
... her like a blow that she felt at once all over, upon body, heart and mind. The discovery rushed out from its ambush to overwhelm. The truth of it, making all arguing futile, numbed her faculties. But though at first it deadened her, she soon revived, and her being rose into aggressive opposition. A wild yet calculated courage like that which animates the leaders of splendid forlorn ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... mistrust the future. Dangers have been in frequent ambush along our path, but we have uncovered and vanquished them all. Passion has swept some of our communities, but only to give us a new demonstration that the great body of our people are stable, patriotic, and law-abiding. No ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... of my 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 ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... that Buckley never goes into a fight without giving away weight. He seems to dread taking the slightest advantage. That's quite close to foolhardiness when you are dealing with horse-thieves and fence-cutters who would ambush you any night, and shoot you in the back if they could. Buckley's too full of sand. He'll play Horatius and hold the bridge ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... circumstance; for the failure of the strangers to reply seemed to indicate a hostile disposition; and for the party to plunge into the depths of the forest with a band of hostile Indians dogging their footsteps, or perhaps preparing to ambush them, seemed to Earle the opposite of good generalship; after considering the matter, therefore, it was decided to camp for the remainder of the day, at a sufficient distance from the forest to render a surprise attack impossible, and ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... never foiled in fight! 1 Warrior Love, that on Wealth workest havoc! Love, who in ambush of young maid's soft cheek All night keep'st watch!—Thou roamest over seas. In lonely forest homes thou harbourest. Who may avoid thee? None! Mortal, Immortal, All are o'erthrown by thee, all ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... went by; and that fierce old villain Sekhome plotted and laid ambush against the life of his valiant son, Khama. Men who followed David Livingstone into Africa had come as missionaries to his tribe and had taught him the story of Jesus and given him the knowledge of ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... had observed her presentation of his little idiosyncrasies, drew nearer and looked at her hard. For he disliked the sound of that cough. He suspected that his old friend and opponent, Death, with whom he fought an interminable campaign, was mocking him from ambush. It wasn't quite fair play, either, for the foe to use the particular weapon indicated by the cough on a mere child. With her lustrous hair loose and floating, and her small, eager, flushed face, she looked ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... beach, and, not suspecting the proximity of the ambush which waited to receive him, had proceeded towards the avenue made at his first visit to the island. Removing the loose bushes, they attempted to pass through; but no sooner were they fairly involved among the young ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... nobody kept any engagement. Sir Guy Vol-au-Vent (and none but a most abandoned desperado or advanced thinker would be willing to do such a thing on Christmas) had accepted an invitation to an ambush at three for the slaying of Sir Percy de Resistance. But the ambush was put off till a more convenient day. Sir Thomas de Brie had been going to spend his Christmas at a cock-fight in the Count de Gorgonzola's barn. But he remarked to his man Edward, who brought ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... delivered himself of a volley of oaths, while Whitley stood quietly looking at him, his mind filled with strange thoughts. The man who could deliberately fire from ambush with intent to kill was the man ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... at him shrewdly, quizzically, from out his ambush of whiskers. A slow grin broke over ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... foremost mules by the heads, and the hindmost because the mules tied together, are always driven one after another; and especially that if we should have need to use our weapons that night, we might be sure not to endamage our fellows. We had not lain thus in ambush much above an hour, but we heard the Recuas coming both from the city to Venta Cruz, and from Venta Cruz to the city, which hath a very common and great trade, when the fleets are there. We heard them by reason they delight much to have deep-sounding bells, which, ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... for escape: these misfortunes had transferred him to Corinth, and staying there he was safe. But the headstrong haughtiness of youthful blood causes him to recoil unknowingly upon the one sole spot of all the earth where the coefficients for ratifying his destruction are waiting and lying in ambush. Heaven and earth are silent for a generation; one might fancy that they are treacherously silent, in order that oedipus may have time for building up to the clouds the pyramid of his mysterious offences. His four children, incestuously born, sons that are his ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... left the valley and climbed between foot-hills and wound into rockier country. Every dark gulch brought to Joan a trembling, breathless spell. What places for ambush! But ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... white meadows, deep with snow, They bore him on a pallet shrouded white, And sore they dreaded lest an ambush'd foe Should hear him moan, or mark the moving light That waved before their footsteps in the night; And much they joy'd when Ida's knees were won, And 'neath the pines upon an upland height, They watch'd the star that heraldeth ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... dense, low scrub which constituted the great difficulty of British troops in the fierce and protracted Kafir wars of fifty years ago; for the ground which the scrub covers was impassable except by narrow and tortuous paths known only to the natives, and it afforded them admirable places for ambush and for retreat. Nowadays a large part of the bush-covered land is used for ostrich-farms, and it is, indeed, fit for little else. The scrub is mostly dry, while the larger forests are comparatively damp, and often beautiful ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... boneshaker. After a few attempts he could remain on the back of the machine for at least ten yards, and his feats had the effect of endowing St. Luke's Square with the attractiveness of a circus. Samuel Povey watched with candid interest from the ambush of his door, while the unfortunate young lady assistants, though aware of the performance that was going on, dared not stir from the stove. Samuel was tremendously tempted to sally out boldly, and chat with his cousin about the toy; he had surely a better right to do so than any ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... gentleman of the party, she dragged him from his ambush, while the others also entered. The youngest approached the blushing, panting Edith with an almost boyish confidence of manner, as if assured of a welcome, while the remaining gentleman, who was verging toward middle age, quietly glided to the piano and gave his ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... maddening in a million ways. It had been the Prince's plan (for he knew well enough that Mahommed Gunga had left a man behind) to allow the escape to start; then it would have been an easy matter to arrange an ambush—to kill Ali Partab—and to pretend to ride to the rescue. Once rescued, Miss McClean and her father would be almost completely at his mercy, for they would not be able to accuse him of anything but friendliness, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... her cross-examination, and seated herself by a window which gave a view of the steep mountain-side behind the Castle, where, sheltered by the thick, dark forest, she knew that her guardian's men lay in ambush. She shuddered slightly, wondering what was the meaning of these preparations, and in the deep silence became aware of the accelerated beating of her heart. She felt but little reassured by the presence of her kinsman, whose lips moved without a murmur, and ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... gazed at them, were like bronze. His first thought, as he gazed out from his ambush, had been Margaret's mother! His second thought was his dislike for Sperry. He watched half unwillingly, with a feeling of mingled curiosity and disgust. He had not pried upon them; it was pure chance that had brought him where he was. At length ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... ambush behind a vine, and covered her father's face with warm kisses, then broke away before he could say a word, and ran up ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... advice. In battle I cannot speak his praise, unless I could count all that fell by his sword. I will only mention one instance of his manhood. When we sat hid in the belly of the wooden horse, in the ambush which deceived the Trojans to their destruction, I, who had the management of that stratagem, still shifted my place from side to side to note the behaviour of our men. In some I marked their hearts trembling, ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... away our rifles and brought us right to Kroger and Pat, without our even asking. Jones is mad at the way they got the rifles so easily. When we came upon them (a group of maybe ten, huddling behind a boulder in ambush), he fired, but the shots either bounced off their scales or stuck in their thick hides. Anyway, they took the rifles away and threw them into the stream, and picked us all up and took us into a hole in the cliff ...
— The Dope on Mars • John Michael Sharkey
... steeped in the cruelest venom. Many fish are capable of inflicting painful and even dangerous wounds, but none is to be more dreaded than the ugly and repulsive "stone fish." Haply, it is comparatively rare. Conceal itself as it may among the swaying seaweed as it lies in ambush ready to seize its prey, or partially bury itself in the mud, it seldom eludes the shrewd observation of the blacks. With a grunt of satisfaction it is impaled with a fish-spear and placed squirming on a rock to be battered to pulp with its prototype—a stone. Utter destruction is the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... more complete ambush sprung upon a reconnoitering party, and for a moment both girls were speechless. It was Sally who saved the day by springing away from Aileen and landing upon the seat ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... entered 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 with tropical forest. Here every Indian could fight behind ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... fetching at Para; and then the Araras, a fierce and intractable tribe of Indians, began to be troublesome. They attacked several canoes and massacred everyone on board, the Indian crews as well as the white traders. Their plan was to lurk in ambush near the sandy beaches where canoes stop for the night, and then fall upon the people while asleep. Sometimes they came under pretence of wishing to trade, and then as soon as they could get the trader at a disadvantage, shot him and ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... Voltaire the poet, they seize upon Voltaire the man, and slander his character because they cannot obscure his fame. I will advance to meet them with an open visor and without a shield. From their place of ambush, with their poisoned arrows, let them slay me. It is better to die than to be suspected and contemned by my ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... hypocrisy that even the stalwart ape-man hesitated to give rein to his natural longings before them. He ate burnt flesh when he would have preferred it raw and unspoiled, and he brought down game with arrow or spear when he would far rather have leaped upon it from ambush and sunk his strong teeth in its jugular; but at last the call of the milk of the savage mother that had suckled him in infancy rose to an insistent demand—he craved the hot blood of a fresh kill and his muscles yearned to pit themselves against the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Cowper) alludes,—books, that is to say, left casually open without design or consciousness, from which some careless passer-by, when throwing the most negligent of glances upon the page, has been startled by a solitary word lying, as it were, in ambush, waiting and lurking for him, and looking at him steadily as an eye searching the haunted places of his conscience. These cases are in principle identical with those of the second class, where the inquirer himself coperated, or was not entirely passive; ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... ambush, its lights a surprise. It blushes, it pales, can whisper, exclaim. It is a peep, a part revelation, just sufferable, of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... English forces, but avoiding every occasion of fair fight. Did the English march to a town under the impression the Danes were about to attack it, they found no foe, but heard the next day that some miserable district at a distance had been cruelly ravaged. Did they lie in ambush, the Danes took another road. Meanwhile the English stragglers were repeatedly cut off; and did they despatch a small force anywhere, it was sure to fall into an ambush, and be annihilated by ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... as people who can hit hard when unjustly attacked, as we on this occasion most certainly were: never was a murderous assault more unjustly made or less provoked. They had left their villages and gone up over the highlands away from the river to their ambush whilst their women came to ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... used by the Chinese, and in which they come from their country here. We were four of the Society who embarked in it, and God was pleased to give it so favorable a wind that by means of it we escaped from the hands of the enemy, who were in ambush, watching for an opportune moment. The father-provincial [59] took the same route in a caracoa—a boat used in this country; but that craft was knocked to pieces before reaching the place where the enemy had established themselves. Hence it was necessary for him and his associate to come overland, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... Tartar euer practiseth to gette his enemie in the midst and so to enuiron him. Let our bands take this caveat also, if the enemie retire, not to make any long pursuit after him, lest peraduenture (according to his custome) he might draw them into some secret ambush: for the Tartar fights more by policie than by maine force. Those horses which the Tartars vse one day, they ride not vpon three or foure dayes after. Moreouer, if the Tartars draw homeward, our men must not therefore depart and casseir their bandes, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... were you, Harry,' said Allan. 'You don't know much about the caves yourself yet, you know, and they're most awfully dangerous; great holes full of water where you don't expect them, and rocks that might fall on the top of you and crush you to pieces; and then the smugglers might be lying in ambush round the corners, ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land; and thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it." Even where the forces were combined against them it made no difference. Joshua 10:8, "And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... face," said young Blake, as he was leaving the shop with his father; "it looks as if he will live to be hanged." The negotiation failed; Blake was apprenticed to Basire; and twelve years after, the darkness that had lain so long in ambush came out and hid the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... fainting, foot-sore marches, In his flight from the stricken fray, In the snare of the lonely ambush, The debts that we owe ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... were hurrying into the forest when they heard the troops of Zerbino. Cloridan fled, fancying that Medoro would do the same, but on finding himself unaccompanied, retraced his footsteps, only to see his friend surrounded by a troop of horsemen. From his ambush he shot his arrows at the foe, until Zerbino in wrath seized Medoro by the throat, exclaiming, "Thou shall die for this!" But when Medoro prayed to be allowed first to bury his lord, pity touched Zerbino, and he freed the youth, who fell, however, wounded by a thrust ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... show no more sign of meaning than the Father's. There may have been on the one side and the other just the faintest glitter of recognition, as you see a bayonet shining out of an ambush; but each party fell back, when everything was ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... 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
... his lungs. It was hard to breathe naturally and easily after that swift dash, but somehow he did it. An Indian had swerved and ridden behind the cabin, and was leaning and peering in all directions to see if anyone had remained. Perhaps he suspected an ambush; Buddy was absolutely certain that the fellow was looking for him, personally, and that he had seen, Buddy ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... evil Tsau Tsau 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 to death himself. Thereupon father and ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... alleys which opened into the great street, or looked down the canals, whose polished surface gleamed with a sort of ebon lustre through the obscurity of the night, they easily fancied they discerned the shadowy forms of their foe lurking in ambush, and ready to spring on them. But it was only fancy; and the city slept undisturbed even by the prolonged echoes of the tramp of horses, and the hoarse rumbling of the artillery and baggage trains. At length, a lighter space beyond the dusky line of buildings showed the van of the army that ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... instant he had flung his dart, hastened to the ambush which he had prepared, and gave them at once the signal and the example of a rapid retreat down the hill. Father Aldrovand would willingly have followed them with a volley of arrows, but the Fleming observed that ammunition was too precious with them to be wasted on a few runaways. ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... more start of us," argued Chase. "Nothing will be accomplished by rushing into an ambush. They'd kill us like rats. Rasula is a sagacious scoundrel. He'll not take the entire responsibility. There will be a council of all the head men. It will be of no advantage to them to kill the heirs unless they are sure that we won't live to tell the tale. They will go slow, now ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... and dine with me, rushed into my room panting for breath with the fearful news that the entire garrison and a number of white people from different places assembled there at dinner had suddenly been surprised by a whole host of blacks. The villains had been lying in ambush near at hand, and rushing upon them without warning, had put nearly every human being of the party to death. Among the few survivors was a black servant of one of the officers, who had given him the information. He himself had got near enough to see the blacks in possession of the fort, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... Murdock's bedroom in order that I might see the wax figure, their object, of course, being that I should be forced to prove an alibi in case Murdock was suspected of the crime. The telegram which reached me at Prince's Hotel on my return from London was sent by one of the ruffians, who was lying in ambush at Brent. When I left Murdock's house, the wife informed Wickham that she thought from my manner I suspected something. He had already taken steps to induce the cab-driver to take me in a wrong direction, in order that I should miss my train, and it was not until he visited the ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... 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 ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... and even timorous physical organization, whom moral courage and a strong will have afterwards converted into dauntless heroes. Certain it is that he was destined to confront open danger in every form, that his path was to lead through perpetual ambush, yet that his cheerful confidence and tranquil courage were to become not only unquestionable but proverbial. It may be safely asserted, however, that the story was an invention to be classed with those fictions which made him the murderer of his first wife, a common ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of sleight of hand that you can throw your nets around robbers; for it is easier to guess the riddles of the Sphinx than to detect the whereabouts of a flying thief. He looks round him on all sides, ready to start off at the sound of an advancing footstep, trembling at the thought of a possible ambush. How can one catch him who, like the wind, tarries never in one place? Go forth, then, under the starry skies; watch diligently with all the birds of night, and as they seek their food in the darkness so do you therein ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... knife. My thought was of decoy and ambush, which was no credit to me, for this girl had been faithful before. But we train ourselves not to trust ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... peered out to see what was happening. The shell fire had made him pant and shake, his lips were full of prayers remembered and half-remembered. The boats came nearer, they were almost up to the log-built pier now. Had they been left alone till they had come further, there might have been hope for the ambush of a great bag, while the Indians were bunched together on the landing place. But those in the banana grove trench were eager, they would not hold their fire. The rifles cracked, the bullets thrashed up the water, men crouched down in the drifting boats with oars and rifles ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... there might be treachery afoot was completely dismissed from the minds of all, save when, now and then, the gleam of a spear head was seen amidst the trees in the jungle; and Major Sandars pointed out how easily they might be led into an ambush. ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... 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 a sudden ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... upon the enemy, and with the approval of the prince marched with 1200 foot and 500 horse along the dyke which ran across the low country. Marching to a spot where a bridge crossed a narrow river he placed half his infantry in ambush there; the other half a quarter of a ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... screen. Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart One moment through thy soul the soft surprise Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,— Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart Sleepless ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... will in the meanwhile make all arrangements for the journey. We ought to start at dawn, and we ought to be prepared, especially during the first fifty leagues of the way, against organised attack in case the Englishman leads us into an ambush." ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... for a new army that the Emperor of the French appealed to his people, but for something quite different; namely, men to recruit the old one. As it was, Napoleon first learned of the conflict at Wiazma on the fourth, and contemplated a movement which might lead his pursuers into an ambush. But he found the three columns which had been engaged so pitifully disintegrated that he gave up in despair—a feeling heightened when, for the first time, snowflakes came ominously fluttering through ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Such an ambush was awaiting Jeffrey Masters. It came with terrifying suddenness. Bud was on the lead. The great sea of blue grass had been beaten and crushed by the hoofs of a considerable herd. There was no difficulty, and the pace he made ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... who could only assail them with bows and arrows. But the moment they entered the forest, or any ravine among the hills, the little band was liable to hear the war-whoop of a thousand Indian braves in the ambush around, and to be assailed by a storm of arrows and javelins from ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... individuals can be caged together. Even when two only are kept together, quarrels and shrill squealings are frequent. But they seldom hurt each other. The coati is not a treacherous animal, it is not given to lying in wait to make a covert attack from ambush, and being almost constantly on the move, it is ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... the hubbub under it I can single out the voice of the Federal captain yelling curses and orders at his panic-stricken men. And now the melee rolls southward, the crackle of shots grows less and then more again, and then all at once comes the crash of Quinn's platoon out of ambush, their cheer, their charge, the crackle of pistols again, and then another cheer and charge—what is that! Ferry re-formed and down on them afresh? No, it was the hard-used but gallant foe cutting their way out ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... twelve of them—had been murdered by Indians on the New Netherland border in 1643; now the same cruel fate overtook the gallant captain. The savages agreed to hold a parley and appointed a time and place for the purpose, but instead of keeping tryst they lay in ambush and slew Hutchinson with eight of his men on their way to the conference. [Sidenote: ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... absolutely stationary; a little brown flycatcher, darting across my path, made much commotion. Red-crested woodpeckers hammered industriously in dead wood for rations. So long as their tappings resounded ahead of me I feared no ambush. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... they were Etruscans, with the exception of twenty men from Fregellae, who had given constant proofs of their courage and devotion to Marcellus. On the overhanging crest of the woody hill, a man, unseen by the Romans, was watching their army. He signalled to the men in ambush what was going on, so that they permitted Marcellus to ride close to them, and then suddenly burst out upon him, and surrounding his little force on all sides, struck and threw their darts, pursued such as ran away, and fought with those who stood their ground. These were the twenty Fregellans. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... 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 the corpses to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a burst of shouting, the thicket has given passage to the gang in ambush—some sixty Mongols, nomads of the Gobi. If these rascals beat us, the train will be pillaged, the treasure of the Son of Heaven will be stolen, and, what concerns us more intimately, the passengers will be massacred ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... called Brother Dunham and had some private talk with him, and then started for the jail at Carthage. Dunham said that the Prophet requested him to take his Danites and ambush them in a grove near Carthage, and watch the movements of the crowd; but Dunham dared not go contrary to ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... from the sight of any of the serpent-eyed Sioux concealed there; for there could be no certainty that the fugitives had not been observed by them. It was not the custom of their people to attack openly; more likely they would set some ambush into which the whites might ride with no ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... too—little acts of yours, that we will figure in as we go. The affair on Broken Knee, when you attacked this young girl; the shooting of Blood River Jack, from ambush; the second attack on the girl at the foot of the rapid—and the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... answered her mother, "with swamps for a floor, tents that let the water through for shelter, and the cholera killing them by hundreds, and the Moors lying in ambush for them or treacherously following them, and those eternal nights that swallow up the days! There is no strength nor courage that could bear up ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... this stage-direction: "Here a company of villains in ambush from behind the scenes discharge their guns at Muly-Hamet; at which Muly-Hamet starting and turning, Hametalhaz from under his priest's habit draws a sword and passes at Muly-H., which pass is intercepted by Abdeleader. They engage in a very fierce fight with the villains, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... but he didn't hear me. I hurried along as fast as I could, but before I caught up, there was a good deal of firing, and when I got there flankers were out in the woods, and there was sorrow, for three or four boys in blue had been killed in an ambush, and the rebels had got away across a bayou. As I rode up on my mule, with the picket still in my hand, I saw the three soldiers of my regiment lying dead under a tree, two others were wounded and had bandages around their heads, and for the ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... leagues around the woods sighed and shivered. And then, at one bound, the sun had floated up; and her startled eyes received day's first arrow, and quailed under the buffet. On every side, the shadows leaped from their ambush and fell prone. The day was come, plain and garish; and up the steep and solitary eastern heaven, the sun, victorious over his competitors, continued slowly and ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... length, and as dangerously armed as their larger relation. These miserable little wretches seem always on the watch to claw hold of something, and if you are unhappy enough to be caught, and attempt to disengage yourself by struggling, fresh tendrils appear always to lurk in ambush, ready to assist their companion, who already holds you in his grasp. I have measured the length of one of these canes, and found it over 250 paces; and this is not the maximum to which they attain, for I have been assured by men employed in cutting a telegraph ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... soon as the infantry of the rear-guard had arrived in camp, the mounted troops of the rear-guard were attacked rather sharply, but they managed to hold their own and to beat off the Boers. Two companies of the Liverpool Regiment, who formed part of the advance guard, fell into an ambush and lost considerably, leaving, it was reported, some eighty men either killed, wounded, or prisoners in the hands of the Boers. Shortly after arrival in camp, five companies of the Regiment were sent out ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... information 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 ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... was founded to commemorate the one greatest tradition of the pass,—the destruction of Charlemagne's rear-guard by the Basques in ambush and the death of ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... Helen. "They are sending soldiers to the Midas to lie in ambush, and you must warn the Vigilantes." Cherry paled at this ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... over at the Bigart. He raised that lovely set of whiskers for Camillia of the Cumberlands and what did he get for it?—just two weeks. Fact! What do you know about that? Hugo has him killed off in the second spool with a squirrel rifle from ambush, and Pa thinking he would draw pay for at least another three weeks. He kicked, but Hugo says the plot demanded it. I bet, at that, he was just trying to cut down his salary list. I bet that continuity this minute shows Pa drinking his corn out of a jug and playing a fiddle for the dance ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... all this) was to inquire at the gambling houses where Mr. Van Quintem, jr., was most likely to be, and, when he was found, to send this note in to him by a servant. Bog, having delivered the note, was to withdraw to the sidewalk, lie in ambush, till young Van Quintem came out, and then follow him to Miss Minford's retreat. There he was to wait, and send a swift messenger to Mrs. Crull and old Van Quintem. It was not known that young Van Quintem had ever seen Miss Minford's ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... from his first arrival in the country. He and his tribe were the determined enemies of the pirates, and with the Balows of the Batang Lupar braved the Sarebas and Sakarrans, even when they were most powerful. At the pirate fight of 1849 the Lundu chief lost two of his sons: they were killed by an ambush set by Lingi the Sarebas chief. Only one son, Callon, remained, and he was not his father's favourite. Poor old Orang Kaya! it was a terrible trial, and nearly brought him to his grave. Some time afterwards, he and Callon were at Sarawak to pay their tax. Lingi, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... John Wilde lay in ambush one night for the underground people, and snatched an opportunity to pull off one of their shoes by stretching himself there with a brandy bottle beside him, and acting like one that was dead drunk, for he was a very cunning man, not over scrupulous in his morals, and had taken in many a one by ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... careful from whom, or in what manner he obtained a head, and the victim might be, not only a person with whom he had no quarrel, but even a member of a friendly tribe, and the mode of acquisition might be, not by a fair stand-up fight, a test of skill and courage, but by treachery and ambush. Nor did it make very much difference whether the head obtained was that of a man, a woman or a child, and in their petty wars it was even conceived to be an honourable distinction to bring in the heads of women and children, the reasoning being that the men of the attacked tribe must have fought ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... Mohar! they say'); so they say, and thou gainest a name among the Mohars and the knights of the land of Egypt. Thy name becomes like that of Qazairnai, the lord of Asel, when the lions found him in the thicket, in the defile which is rendered dangerous by the Shasu who lie in ambush among the trees. They measured four cubits from the nose to the heel, they had a grim look, without softness; ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... yonder rascal had taken of his stumbling horse, he flew after him like a dromedary. I could not but follow, both to prevent a second stumble and secure our over bold friend and champion from the chance of some ambush at the top of the hill. But the villain, who is a follower of some Lord of the Marches, and wears a winged spur for his cognizance, fled from our neighbour like fire ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... and they that were with him rose up against them from the place where they lay in ambush, and made a slaughter of them in such sort, as many fell down dead, and the remnant fled into the mountain, and ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... a petty officer and four men and lead a point," Lieutenant Trent ordered. "I don't want the 'glory' of running a command into an ambush." ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... Lenni-Lenape were most glorious fighters. They dived among the canoes to hack holes in the bottoms, and rising from under the sides they pulled the paddlers bodily into the river. We were mad with our first fight, we youngsters, for we let them lead us up over the bank and straight into ambush. We ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... days, and their vigilance was relaxed by custom (an effect which is generally produced by time), the Bellovaci, having made themselves acquainted with the daily stations of our horse, lie in ambush with a select body of foot in a place covered with woods; to it they sent their horse the next day, who were first to decoy our men into the ambuscade, and then when they were surrounded, to attack them. It was the lot of the Remi to fall into this snare, ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... rarely attacks a human being for the purpose of eating. When hungry he will often follow the tracks of people, and under favorable circumstances may ambush them. In the park where game is plentiful, no one has ever known a cougar to follow the trail of a person; but outside the park lions have been known to follow hunters, and particularly stalk little children. The Davis family, living ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... was the deep silence on every hand to bring doubt into his mind; and he knew that Indians—especially Apaches—were tricky, sometimes foregoing the smoke signals to lie in ambush. And very likely—if they had seen him coming—they were doing that very thing: waiting for him to ride into the trap they had prepared. He had not been able to locate the point from which the reports ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... ground merely furnished piled fuel. Somewhat demoralized, we fell back, and tried, rather vaguely, to draw a second line of defence. The smoke and sparks suffocated and overwhelmed us, and the following flames leaped upon us as from behind an ambush. Some few men continued gropingly to try to do something, but the most of us were only too glad to get out where we could ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... on the banks of this vanished river, we used to hear lions roaring as evening fell, and could distinguish their soft pads in the dry sand next morning; but they were so shy that we never caught a glimpse of one, nor could they be tempted into any ambush. ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... fall Steve Barclay's right arm was broken. With consummate coolness the highwayman (now positively described as a thick-set man, with a beard) proceeded to relieve his victims of their valuables, but not until he had called, as was his wont, to his confederates in ambush to keep the passengers covered with their rifles. The outlaw inquired which of his victims was Sir Charles Lackington, and evinced rage when he learned that that gentleman was not among the passengers ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... on the road homewards to Roxby, however, Sir Ralph Evers was accused of having laid "in a wayte to have murderyd" Sir Roger Hastings at Brompton, for at that place Evers and eight of his servants came upon Sir Roger's men who were being sent ahead to discover the ambush that they had reason to fear. When Sir Ralph found that the men who reached Brompton were only servants and messengers, he was accused of having said to them "ye false hurson Kaytyffes, I shall lerne ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... last day of the week, which was held sacred to Loki, was known in the Norse as Laugardag, or wash-day, but in English it was changed to Saturday, and was said to owe its name not to Saturn but to Sataere, the thief in ambush, and the Teutonic god of agriculture, who is supposed to be ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... countries. Thus, you see, as a Fleming I should wish to see Ghent —although I love not the turbulent town—preserved from the destruction that would surely fall upon it were the earl to capture it. Why, at Ypres, not only did he kill many thousands of the citizens in an ambush, but when he entered the town, he beheaded well-nigh six hundred of the citizens. If he did that at Ypres, which had offended comparatively little, what would he do to Ghent, which has killed his bailie, sacked and burned his palace, defied his authority, ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... the right—as a loud cannonade and a heavy smoke told us—he halted the brigade in the wood, and held a council of his officers to see what was to be done. The resolution come to was, that the voltigeurs should advance alone to explore the way, the rest of the force remaining in ambush. We were to go out in sections of companies, and, spreading over a wide surface, see what we could of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... by a previous visitor, and used to lengthen a short leg of the dressing-table—in my pocket, and leave the quay to its harsh new thoughts, and to the devices by which it gets a bare sustenance out of the tides, the seasons, and the winds, complicated now with high explosives in cunning ambush; and go out to the headland, where wild goats among the rocks which litter the steep are the only life to blatter critical comment to high heaven. I left that holiday quay and its folk, and took with me a prayer which might go far to brace me to support the blattering of goats, ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... that she might compose herself to sleep. Scarcely was she alone when with cat-like tread there glided through the doorway the dark figure of a woman, who advanced toward the bedside, noiselessly as a serpent would steal to his ambush. She was apparently forty-five years of age, and dressed in deep mourning, which seemed to increase the marble whiteness of her face. Her eyes, large, black, and glittering, fastened themselves upon, the invalid with a gaze so intense that Mrs. ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... their sloops to reconnoitre. They proceeded up the harbor and on their return reported that they had seen only two or three people. However, Monckton learned later that there were more than two hundred Indians in ambush at the mouth of the river when the English landed, but their chief, overawed by the strength of the invaders, would not suffer them to fire and retired with them up the river, and "upon their return to Oauckpack (their settlement ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond |
