"Sortie" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the night before had long lost its importance under stress of anxiety at her strange sortie into the fog. But now that Irene was home, the memory of her broken-hearted sobbing came back to him, and he felt nervous at the thought ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a high rock, and approachable only at the rear. Given time they might starve the garrison, or drive them mad with thirst, for I doubt if there be men enough there to make sortie ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... the words to Cosimo, who hesitated still. Indeed, he had wheeled his horse when the bridge fell, ready to gallop off at the first sign of a sortie. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... of it, for every minute of the day and night, some watcher of the Belgians sat in the window, one flight up, by the two machine guns, gazing out over the flooded fields, and the thin white strip of road that led eastward to the enemy trenches. Once, fifteen mouse-colored uniforms had made a sortie down the road and toward the house, but the eye at the window had sighted them, and let them draw close till the aim was very sure. Since then, there had been no one coming down the road. But a ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... oldest men with half a dozen veteran soldiers to defend the gateway against a sudden attack; with the rest we can issue out, and marching round, enter by the gate and breaches, sweeping the streets as we go, and then uniting, burst through any guard they may have placed to prevent a sortie, and so ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... time the appearance of a lad named Nat Banbury or any of his cohorts was a signal for repartee, challenges, sometimes a sortie. Advances were made by Banbury toward the enlistment of the two new recruits in his ranks, but Frank ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... resistance became fierce once more. A few moments later a sort of uncertainty was noticeable, and a beginning of disorder among the foe. Suddenly the captain hastily collected a little troop in the room on the ground floor, in order to make a sortie with fixed bayonets. Then he flew up stairs. Scarcely had he arrived there when they heard a hasty trampling of feet, accompanied by a formidable hurrah, and saw from the windows the two-pointed hats of the Italian carabineers advancing through the smoke, a squadron ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... good Colonel," he said, affecting a courage which his shaking voice belied, "here are only you and I and honest Desborough left behind in garrison, while all the others are absent on a sally. We must not hazard the whole troops in one sortie—that were unmilitary—Ha, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the fight was renewed, but this time it was the Aztecs and not the Spaniards who began it. There was no idea of a fresh sortie. All that the garrison could hope was to defend their position. So furiously did the natives attack that, for a time, they forced their way into the entrenchments; but the Spaniards, whose turn it was to fight with the bravery ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... into the city in disguise, and informed Strongbow that FitzStephen was closely besieged in Wexford. It was then at once determined to force a passage through the Irish army. Raymond le Gros led the van, Miles de Cogan followed; Strongbow and Maurice FitzGerald, who had proposed the sortie, with the remainder of their force, brought up the rere. The Irish army was totally unprepared for this sudden move; they fled in panic, and Roderic, who was bathing in the Liffey, escaped ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... want of food, and great numbers of the inhabitants had availed themselves of Gordon's permission to join the Mahdi. Omdurman, opposite to Khartoum, on the west bank of the river, fell about January 13th, and about the 18th a sortie was made, in which some serious fighting took place. The state of the garrison then grew desperate. Gordon continually visited the posts by night as well as day, and encouraged the famished garrison. The news of Sir Herbert Stewart's ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... second attack. He took part in the passage of the Bidassoa, the grand reconnaissance before Bayonne, the battle of the Nive (being there again severely wounded), in the blockade of Bayonne, and in the repulse of the sortie from that place, when he succeeded to the command of the fifth division of the army. In June, 1814, Major-General Robinson went to North America in command of a brigade, and he led the forces intended for the attack on Plattsburg, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... last night than it has ever been. There were both a cannonade and a fusillade. Everybody thought that the Versaillais had at last made their assault. It appears that the Communists attempted a sortie, and were repulsed with great loss. Numerous waggons filled with wounded were taken to Versailles. Various battalions returned to Paris, apparently much dispirited. Numerous reinforcements, however, ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... blown it abroad that your majesty feasts to-night. While the Duke of Burgundy believes us to be carousing, we shall make a sortie from St. Anthony's gate. Our horses' hooves will be muffled, no spur shall jingle, and no bridle clink. We will steal through the night like shadows. At the cross road some few of us will make an attack upon the ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of Virginia, and entered the army in 1808. He was brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel in 1814, for "gallant conduct in the defense of Fort Erie." A month later he received the rank of Brevet Colonel, for "distinguished and meritorious services in the sortie from Fort Erie." In 1824, he was made Brevet Brigadier-General for "ten years' faithful service as Colonel." In 1848, he was brevetted as Major-General for "meritorious conduct, particularly in the performance of his duties in the prosecution ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... try and think of a good dodge—a sortie, or doing something to make the Boers come on to-night. If we had a jolly good light he'd forget all about it, and I shouldn't hear any more about the miserable business. Here, what can we do to make the Boers come on? I might get killed in the set-to, and then ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... downright ludicrous, as she was aware without being able to summon the mood to appreciate it. The girls she'd known, back in the Edgewater days, who had ambitions to learn to draw went to the Art Institute. So Rose, summoning her courage for a sortie across the avenue, want there too, and felt, as she climbed the steps between the lions, a little the way Christian did in similar circumstances. After waiting a while she was shown into the office of an affable young ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... their camps out of range of the fire from the city, batteries were established, under cover of night, far to the front of the line where the troops lay. These batteries were intrenched and the approaches sufficiently protected. If a sortie had been made at any time by the Mexicans, the men serving the batteries could have been quickly reinforced without great exposure to the fire from the enemy's main line. No serious attempt was made to capture the batteries or ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... which a thin ladder conducted to the roof of the house. It had evidently been constructed when the building was used as a fortification, and was probably intended to enable the garrison to make a sudden sortie on the enemy at an unexpected point. The outside entrance was blocked up by rubbish overgrown with vegetation; and my father had caused a strong door to be placed to the vault, to prevent any intruder, who might by chance have found his way through it, from entering the house. ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... for the last time, did the Russian fleet at Port (p. 281) Arthur attempt a sortie. It failed, and ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... day. They had endured the strain upon their nerves, but through the long night-hours they stood in the drenching rain, beneath the sheets of lurid flame, looking with sleepless eyes towards the front, prepared to repel a sortie ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... the abandonment of the attack on Medeba, and to the hurried march of its besiegers to relieve Rabbath. Probably the Syrian allies had been before Medeba, and suddenly appeared in Joab's rear. Their advance led the besieged to attempt a sortie, so that Joab was between two fires. It was a difficult position. Whichever foe he attacked, his retreat was cut off, and another enemy was ready to hurl itself on his rear. There was no time for manoeuvring, and nothing for it but to face both assailants. So, without hesitation he made his dispositions. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... hands below; and, being in possession of plenty of arms, the men having carried their muskets and pistols below with them, with all the ammunition, he was still extremely formidable. What course he would pursue, I was obliged to conjecture. A sortie would have been very hazardous, if practicable at all; and it was scarcely practicable, after the means taken by Smudge and the Dipper to secure the passages. Everything, so far as I was ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... 4th of October the governor ordered a sortie of 80 men in three parties. On the 5th Captain Juan de Amezquita led another sortie, and so between sorties, surprises, night attacks, and mutual cannonadings things continued till the ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... of a certain accent of menace, and I braced myself for a sortie on the part of the besieged, if he had any such hostile intent. Presently a door opened at the very place where I least expected a door, at the farther end of the building, in fact, and a man in his shirt-sleeves, shielding a candle with ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... garrison combined in making a vigorous sortie into the road; but it was only to find the enemy in full retreat, and a few dropping shots at long range ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... line. When they entered the fight at Melle in October, 1914, our corps worked with one of their doctors, and came to know him. Later he took charge of a dressing station near St. George. Here one day the Germans made a sudden sortie, drove back the Fusiliers for a few minutes, and killed the Red Cross roomful, bayoneting the wounded men. The Fusiliers shortly won back their position, found their favorite doctor dead, and in a fury wiped out the Germans who had murdered him and his patients, ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... morning of the 10th the Russian batteries for the first time opened a heavy fire upon us. But the distance was too great for much harm to be done. On the 11th the Russians made their first sortie, which was ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... ammunition the besieged sparingly returned the incessant fire of the Chinese soldiery, fighting only to repel attack or make an occasional successful sortie for strategic advantage, such as that of fifty-five American, British, and Russian marines led by Captain Myers, of the United States Marine Corps, which resulted in the capture of a formidable barricade on the wall that gravely menaced ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... flames, and a furious conflict raging around it. He hurried to the spot, and found that his camp had been suddenly assailed from one side by a party of foresters, and that the baron's people had made a sortie on the other, and that they had killed the guards, and set fire to the machine, before the rest of the camp could come to the assistance of ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... without opposition, and these now opened an irritating fire on the Russians upon the wall. At eight o'clock the firing suddenly swelled into a roar. Doctorow, the Russian general in command of the troops in the town, made a sortie, and cleared the suburbs at the point of the bayonet. Napoleon, believing that the Russian army was coming out to attack him, drew up Ney and Davoust's troops in order of battle, with 70,000 infantry in the first line, supported ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... Heywood even made a sortie, and stealing from the main gate with four coolies, removed to the river certain relics that lay close under the wall, and would soon become intolerable. He had returned safely, with an ancient musket, a bag of bullets, a petroleum squirt, and a ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... and at length Oglethorpe, having discovered that the Spanish force was divided, decided to make a sortie and surprise one part of it. So with three hundred chosen men he marched out one dark night, and stole silently through the woods until he had ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... of the temple preparing for a sortie against the Saracen. The Chinese warrior equipping himself for battle. The Comanchee brave taking to the warpath were as nothing compared to Tartarin de Tarascon arming himself to go to the club at nine o'clock on a dark evening, ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... came again to assail them. It surrounded the club with cries of "Long live the convention! Down with the Jacobins!" The latter prepared for defence; they left their seats, shouting, "Long live the republic!" rushed to the doors, and attempted a sortie. At first they made a few prisoners; but soon yielding to superior numbers, they submitted, and traversed the ranks of the victors, who, after disarming them, covered them with hisses, insults, and even blows. These illegal ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... which he hinted at a rumour he had heard that the Count might be persuaded to become an ally of the King of France. Bayard added that he desired nothing more, but Sickingen must lose no time, for his camp would soon be hemmed in by the approaching Swiss and by a sortie well timed from the town. This information was to be ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... the murmur of the bees, but the incessant buzzing of flies and wasps is an equally prominent sound. Then there is the occasional sortie of the dragon-fly, making his gauzy, skimming circuit about the room, or suggestively bobbing around against wall or ceiling; and that occasional audible episode of the stifled, expiring buzz of a fly, which is too plainly in the toils of Arachne up yonder! For in one corner of my room I boast ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... rock was thought to be in a state of sufficient security, the party who composed what might be called the sortie, sallied forth on their anxious expedition. The advance was led by Esther in person, who, attired in a dress half masculine, and bearing a weapon like the rest, seemed no unfit leader for the group of wildly clad frontiermen, that followed in ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... for obvious reasons. The sortie for information had been too successful to please her, and in Donna's present mood the elder woman knew that she would fare but poorly in a battle of wits. Indeed, she already stood in a most unenviable ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... boundary of the state of New York, and has of late years greatly increased in extent, wealth, and population. The old town, quite an inconsiderable place, on the site of which the present city has risen, phoenix-like, was burnt to the ground during the late war, by some British officers, who made a sortie from the Canada shores; which circumstance, having been handed down from father to son, still rankles in the bosoms of many of the older inhabitants, who do not fail to state their belief that retributive justice will eventually be administered by the entire subjugation of Canada. During ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... speech: "Oh thou art warm" and continues in one form or another throughout the play.—The organist commences in the middle of the Ropartz "Sortie," at the top of page 6 and continues this until the back of the hut is withdrawn when he drifts into the accompaniment of the Gevaert song, and plays it through once without the voices. As Holger cries ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... of the Army of northern Virginia with 125,000 men, and when active operations began Lee had no resource but to try and escape to the south-west in order to join Johnston. The western movement was covered by a furious sortie from the lines of Petersburg, which was repulsed with heavy loss. Grant felt that this was a mere feint to screen some other move, and instantly carried the Army of the Potomac to the westward, leaving a bare screen of troops in his lines. On the 29th of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Walter Manny and his men returned from a successful sortie out of Henneboune, the chronicle tells us,' The Countess de Montfort came down from the castle to meet them, and with a most cheerful countenance kissed Sir Walter Manny and all his companions, one after the other, like a noble and ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... night was that which describes the campaign of David, during which he and his hosts were besieged in their earthworks, and how the three mighty men had made a sortie through the camp of the enemy in order to obtain for their leader a cup ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... the patrol commander, who gave permission to any of his men to volunteer for the hazardous enterprise. There was no lack of aspirants, for practically every man expressed his wish to take part in the sortie. Finally the subaltern chose three Rhodesians ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... great indignation of the prince-regent, his friends, and many others. The nobles thereupon began to draw near to Paris, and to ride about in the fields of the neighborhood, prepared to fight if there should be a sortie from Paris to attack them. . . . On a certain day the besiegers came right up to the bridge of Charenton, as if to draw out the King of Navarre and the Parisians to battle. The King of Navarre issued forth, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the stones at the hall-door; she was naturally plump,—and it is astonishing how much more plump a female becomes when she is on all-fours! The maid-servant, then, was scrubbing the stones, her face turned from the Captain; and the Captain, evidently meditating a sortie, stood ruefully gazing at the obstacle before him and hemming aloud. Alas, the maidservant was deaf! I stopped, curious to see how Uncle Roland would extricate himself from ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the few ornaments in the drawing-room of Macaulay when I last saw him, shortly before his lamented death. Next to the Doctors of the Church is his LEAR IN THE STORM, after the picture by West, now in the Boston Athenaeum, and his SORTIE FROM GIBRALTAR, after the picture by Trumbull, also in the Boston Athenaeum. Thus, through at least two of his masterpieces whose originals are among us, is our country ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner
... of a soldier. He was sent to the seat of war in Holland, to serve under the Prince of Orange. At the age of nineteen, he was a volunteer at the siege of Hesdin; in the next year, he was at Arras, where he distinguished himself during a sortie of the garrison; in the next, he took part in the siege of Aire; and, in the next, in those of Callioure and Perpignan. At the age of twenty-three, he was made colonel of the regiment of Normandy, which he commanded in repeated ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... than the privations which unhappily are endured by the unemployed in Great Britain during a hard winter. The siege was conducted without much vigour and determination, and the most important operation on the side of the defence was a sortie on November 29 after the news had come in ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... robber knights who had joined them, were obstinately defending their castles and making it difficult for Heinz Schorlin to perform his task. The day before news had come that the Absbach's strong mountain fortress had fallen; that the allied knights, in a sortie which merged into a miniature battle, had been defeated, and the Siebenburgs could not hold out much longer; but in the stress of his duties the knight seemed to have forgotten to make the slightest effort in behalf of his faithful servant. At least the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... soldiers and about one hundred and fifty Indians to the said pass that the Ygolotes were defending; and although they resisted for some time, and killed some soldiers and natives, I gained the pass and destroyed the fort, so that the enemy could not remain in it longer or make any other sortie, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... fortress, while the number of his troops had been diminishing with great rapidity. Mondragon was not so impetuous as he had been on many former occasions. He never ventured an assault. At last Teligny made a sortie at the head of a considerable force. A warm action succeeded, at the conclusion of which, without a decided advantage on either side, the sluice-gate in the fortress was opened, and the torrent of the Scheldt, swollen by a high tide, was suddenly poured upon the Spaniards. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... palisades and the sharp thorn fences (those predecessors of the barbed-wire entanglements of to-day), force the gates, or carry the ramparts, built three wooden towers mounted on wheels, and pushed them full of soldiers up to the gates. But the garrison made a sortie, seized the towers, destroyed them, and killed or captured ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... far down the stream, they reached the land beyond bowshot of the Danes, and they soon entered the town amid the loud acclamations of the citizens. The Danes now for the most part drew off from the neighbourhood, and the Abbe Ebble led out a sortie, which reached the Danish camp, and driving back those whom they found within it, set it on fire and effected their retreat to Paris without loss, in spite of the efforts of the enemy, who rapidly assembled at the sight ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... finally broke them down to three probables: a Lunar courier which had aborted and returned to base for no clean cut reason, an alleged training exercise in three body orbits with the instructors' seats inexplicably filled with nothing lower than the rank of Lieut. Commander and a sour smelling sortie out ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy
... Inkerman, a gallant and desperate sortie of the Russians, bravely and successfully resisted by the besiegers. The loss of life on both sides was terrible. To what extent was this battle decisive? Mr. Russell shall give his own testimony on this point:—"We had nothing to rejoice over, and almost everything to deplore, in the Battle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... pictures on those walls in Pearl Street do keep their places in the mind's gallery! Trumbull's Sortie of Gibraltar, with red enough in it for one of our sunset after-glows; and Neagle's full-length portrait of the blacksmith in his shirt-sleeves; and Copley's long-waistcoated gentlemen and satin-clad ladies,—they looked ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Chinese and doing all they could in our defense. The Spaniards succeeded in setting fire to the Parian, obliging them to retreat to a stone chapel, the erection of which had been begun, twenty paces from the wall, named Avocacion de Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria, where our men made a sortie to meet them and caused them great loss. When the Chinese saw that they could not maintain themselves there, they divided into three bands and went inland, doing much damage. An attempt was made to reach them still, for which purpose one of the old captains of this city, called Don ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... before them. The king had, when Mr. Goodenough first suggested these defenses, pointed out that much less earth would be required were it piled directly against the gates. Mr. Goodenough replied, that certainly this was so, but that it was essential to be able to open the gates to make a sortie if necessary against the enemy, and although the king shook his head, as if doubting the ability of his people to take such a desperate step as that of attacking the enemy outside their walls, he ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... defended was the place that they failed in this also, and in the end were obliged to retreat, leaving great numbers of dead behind them. Then a young and brave knight in the garrison, named Matts Kettilmundson, made a sortie against the Russians and drove them back in panic flight, many ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... defeated, and is compared to an army which, having lost the battle, steals away from the pursuit of the victor only under cover of night.' (Matching allegory with allegory, I will say that the defender is not vanquished so long as he remains protected by his entrenchments; and if he risks some sortie beyond his need, it is permitted to him to withdraw within his fort, without being open to ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... said; and with much laughter I tried to seize hold of her. Whilst she sprang about, she loosened her veil, and took off her hat; her sparkling eyes hung on mine, and watched my movements. I made a fresh sortie, and tripped on the carpet and fell, my sore foot refusing to bear me up any longer. I ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... passed beyond the stage of advice. The people of Massachusetts and the neighboring colonies, on their own motion, had shut up the governor of the colony and his troops in the town of Boston, and were formally besieging him. On June 17 the British made their last sortie, and attacked and defeated the besieging forces at Bunker Hill. Neither the country nor Congress could long stand still. Precisely a week after assembling, Congress voted that certain commerce "must immediately cease." ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... Huguenots, except the murders. In the night from the 2nd to the 3rd October, about ten o'clock, he came down into the plain and attacked Sommieres from two different points, setting fire to the houses. The inhabitants seizing their arms, made a sortie, but Cavalier charged them at the head of the Cavalry and forced them to retreat. Thereupon the governor, whose garrison was too small to leave the shelter of the walls, turned his guns on them and fired, less ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... my friends, I looked forward to the evening with some impatience. That very day the French made a sortie; our regiment marched to the attack. The evening came on; we sat round the fires... the soldiers cooked porridge. My comrades talked. I lay on my cloak, drank tea, and listened to my comrades' stories. They suggested a game of cards—I refused to take part in it. I felt excited. ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... skirmishing round Fort Henry was over, La Corne, with a body of Indians, occupied the road that led to Fort Edward; and Levis encamped close by, to support him, and check any sortie the English might make from their intrenched camp. Montcalm reconnoitred the position. He had, at first, intended to attack and carry the intrenched camp, but he found that it was too strong to be taken by a rush. He therefore determined to attack the fort, ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... that, after a sortie during which they had specially distinguished themselves, the Emperor visited the lines, and paused to praise their bravery. Whether or not the sting contained in M. de Massa's words had impressed them upon his ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... battle.] When these instructions had all been given, the hero died at the appointed time, and his successor and the brave Ximena strove to carry out his every wish. A sortie was planned, and the Cid, fastened upon his war horse, rode in the van. Such was the terror which his mere presence inspired that the Moors fled before him. Most of them were slain, and Bucar beat a hasty retreat, thinking that seventy thousand Christians were about to fall ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... spirit. Here Philemon's king stood pretty firmly guarded by both his knights, one castle, one bishop, and a body of common soldiers[218]—impenetrable as the Grecian phalanx, or Roman legion; while his queen had made a sly sortie to surprise the only surviving knight of Narcottus. Narcottus, on the other hand, was cautiously collecting his scattered foot soldiers, and, with two bishops, and two castle-armed elephants, were meditating a desperate onset to retrieve the disgrace of his lost queen. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... that was all; how easily some people can forgive themselves! But Charley, my hearty, we are getting on slowly with the tipple; are they all empty? So they are! Let us make a sortie on the cellar; bring a candle with you, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... victories by which the rebels were driven from most of their strongholds; and in 1859, he submitted a plan for an advance on Nanking, which was approved and ultimately carried out. Meanwhile, the plight of the besieged rebels in Nanking had become so unbearable that something had to be done. A sortie on a large scale was accordingly organized, and so successful was it that the T'ai-p'ings not only routed the besieging army, but were able to regain large tracts of territory, capturing at the same time huge stores of arms and munitions of war. These victories were in reality ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... Yitm, which Burckhardt first wrote El-Ithem, unfortunately gave Dr. Beke an opportunity of finding, in his "Wady el-Ithem," the "Etham of the Exodus." (See "The Gold-Mines of Midian," pp. 359—361). The latter has been conclusively shown by Brugsch-Bey in his lecture, "La Sortie des Hbreux d'E'gypte" (Alexandrie: Mours, 1874), p. 31, to be the great fort of Khatom, on the highway to Phoenicia. The roots Khatam, Asham, Tam, like the Arabic "Khatm" () signify to seal up, close; and thus Khatom in Egyptian, as Atham, Etham in Hebrew, means a closed place, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... breeding in the Belgians a placating spirit. If a soldier fell out of line at the door of a house to ask for water, all within that house strove to bring the water to him. If an officer, returning from a small sortie into other streets, checked up to ask the way to rejoin his command, a dozen eager arms waved in chorus to point out the proper direction, and a babble of solicitous voices arose from the group about ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... that No.522 Hospital Assistant Piara Singh, 11th Bengal Lancers, rendered valuable assistance, not only in the sortie on the 2nd, and at other times in bringing up ammunition, etc., to the men ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... Augustine, commanded by a sergeant and twelve men, who surrendered without a contest. Thence he proceeded to Fort Diego, situated on the plains, twenty-five miles from St. Augustine, defended by eleven guns, and fifty regulars, besides Indians and negroes. In his sortie upon this, he made use of a little stratagem, as well as force; which was by appointing three or four drums to beat, at the same time, in different places in the woods, and a few men now and then to appear suddenly, and withdraw out of sight again. At this, the enemy in the fort ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... the deep note of the heavy artillery could scarcely be distinguished above the incessant discharges of field pieces. So I lay and listened. What was happening eighteen miles away over the hills? Another bayonet attack by the garrison? Or perhaps a general sortie: or perhaps, but this seemed scarcely conceivable, the Boers had hardened their hearts and were delivering the long expected, long ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... pockets, I stamp upon the coat; —then lift it up with the expectation of finding the creature dead. But it suddenly rushes out from some part or other, looking larger and more wicked than ever,—drops to the floor, and charges at my feet: a sortie! I strike at him unsuccessfully with the stick: he retreats to the angle between wainscoting and floor, and runs along it fast as a railroad train,—dodges two or three pokes, —gains the door-frame,—glides behind ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... 21st we arrived at a point thirty miles from Kelat-i-Ghilzai, whence we opened heliograph communication with that place, and were told of an unsuccessful sortie made from Kandahar five days before, in which General Brooke and eight other British officers ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... was determined, if possible, to relieve the city. There was, however, a constant succession of disappointments. Moreover, the brave but indiscreet Teligny, who commanded during a temporary illness of the Admiral, saw fit, against express orders, to make an imprudent sortie. He paid the penalty of his rashness with his life. He was rescued by the Admiral in person, who, at imminent hazard, brought back the unfortunate officer covered with wounds, into the city, there to die at his father's feet, imploring ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... omit all precautions possible to make good a retreat. While most of the party were making all the noise they could, and succeeding with jest and gibe in keeping the attention of those outside, the barricade against the door had been quietly removed, and decks cleared for the sortie. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... defending force throws off its defensive attitude entirely and advances boldly to attack, it is said to have "assumed the offensive"; but even this assumption, especially if it be temporary—as when a beleaguered garrison makes a sortie—does not rob the situation ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... direction. Only their chief remained in advance, and he, waving his sabre, seemed to be rallying them. Their piercing shouts, which had ceased an instant, redoubled again. "Now, children," ordered the Captain, "open the gate, beat the drum, and advance! Follow me, for a sortie!" ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... out of the crush, crossed the Place de la Concorde and began to ascend the Champs Elysees. And Pierre, reflecting that he had very few minutes before him, at once attacked Duthil, quite ready for any effort to convince him. He remembered what a sortie the young deputy had made against Laveuve at the Baron's; and thus he was astonished to hear him interrupt and say quite pleasantly, enlivened as he seemed by the bright sun which was again beginning to shine: "Ah, yes! your old drunkard! So you didn't settle his business with Fonsegue? And ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... fired, and also the whole of our musketry, after which a party of forty of our men made a sortie. This last charge was sudden and irresistible; the enemy fled in every direction, leaving behind their dead and wounded. That evening we received a reinforcement of thirty-eight men from the settlement, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... siege went on. A sortie of the garrison was repelled, but a number of Nobunaga's best officers were killed. After some two months of effort, three of the five fortresses were in the assailants' hands, and many thousands of the garrison had fallen or perished in the flames, the odor ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... pretendue plante n'etait au vrai, qu'un insecte semblable a une petite Ortie ou Poulpe. J'avais le plaisir de voir remuer les pattes, ou pieds, de cette Ortie, et ayant mis le vase plein d'eau ou le corail etait a une douce chaleur aupres du feu, tous les petits insectes s'epanouirent.—L'Ortie sortie etend les pieds, et forme ce que M. de Marsigli et moi avions pris pour les petales de la fleur. Le calice de cette pretendue fleur est le corps meme de l'animal avance et sorti hors ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... was very heavy, as a guard of five men was given to the messenger, to assist him in carrying it. These people arrived before the place which D'Artagnan was besieging towards daybreak, and presented themselves at the lodgings of the general. They were told that M. d'Artagnan, annoyed by a sortie which the governor, an artful man, had made the evening before, and in which the works had been destroyed and seventy-seven men killed, and the reparation of the breaches commenced, had just gone with twenty companies of grenadiers to reconstruct ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... skinned, and in the course of two or three days the last of it would be eaten. When that was gone there would not be an atom of food left. If it had not been for the women and children, the men would have made a sortie and died facing ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... and skilful advisers have counselled the sunny side of the Alps as a shelter to revive her animation. I have promised Roger de Blonay to pass a night or two within his ancient walls, and then we are destined to seek the hospitality of the monks of St. Bernard. Like thee, I had hoped this unusual sortie from my hold might lead to intelligence touching the fortunes of one I ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Eckmuhl, however, diffused new awe all over the north of Germany. The troops of Saxony checked the Duke of Brunswick's progress, and Schill's heroic band were at last shut up in Stralsund, where their leader perished in a sortie; thus, and only thus, escaping ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... tone of defiance, less likely to prevail. 'If you will not give better terms,' he went on, 'I shall appeal to the honor of the army, and break out, or, at least, defend Sedan.' Then the German general struck in with emphasis, 'I regret that I cannot do what you ask,' he said; 'but as to making a sortie, that is just as impossible as the defence of Sedan. You have some excellent troops, but the greater part of your infantry is demoralized. To-day, during the battle, we captured more than twenty thousand unwounded prisoners. You have only eighty thousand men left. ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... 15,000 Germans, including all that remained of the famous Prussian Guards Corps, that same body that had fought so marvelously on many occasions, and which had suffered the most cruelly in the affair of the marshes of St. Gond, made a sortie from the base line at Nogent l'Abbesse to destroy the railway line between Rheims and Verdun, this line was, indeed, the principal link of communication to that all-important fortress that protruded its bristling salient into the heart of the German position. A French ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... new lines, while waiting for the arrival of Sedgwick. For here the position was almost unassailable, and the troops better massed; and, if Lee had made an unsuccessful assault, Hooker would have been in better condition to make a sortie upon the arrival of the Sixth Corps in his vicinity, than after the bloody and disheartening work ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... last desperate sortie against the advancing things. With his club whistling around his head in crashing blows that wrought murderous havoc in the close-packed hordes, he drove them back for one breathless moment that gave him time to leap forward ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... themselves in a small copse adjoining the palace, until the daylight fairly broke over the awakened city. He then passed into the palace; and was conducted to a hall, where he found the renowned Moslem already astir, and conferring with some Zegri captains upon the tactics of a sortie designed for that day. ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... has succeeded in making arrangements for a boat; and I effect a sortie to the beach, followed by the kurumaya and by all my besiegers. Boats have been moved to make a passage for us, and we embark without trouble of any sort. Our crew consists of two scullers—an old man at the stem, wearing only a rokushaku about his loins, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... Note: sic] SOHK or SAUK, a root that denotes 'pouring out,' is the base of many local names for 'the outlet' or 'discharge' of a river or lake. The Abnaki forms, sa[n]g[oo]k, 'sortie de la riviere (seu) la source,' and sa[n]ghede'teg[oo]e [ Mass. saukituk,] gave names to Saco in Maine, to the river which has its outflow at that place, and to Sagadahock (sa[n]ghede'aki), 'land at the ...
— The Composition of Indian Geographical Names - Illustrated from the Algonkin Languages • J. Hammond Trumbull
... took place in a house next door to this, and a party of boers attempted to go in, but were repulsed by a sortie of the young men within. Some of the more peaceable boers came in here and wanted ale, which was refused, as they were already very vinous; so they imbibed ginger-beer, whereof one drank thirty-four bottles to his own share! Inspired by this drink, they began to ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... outside, but this did not trouble the inhabitants very much, as they were sure that Colley was advancing to their relief, and even got up sweep-stakes as to the date of his arrival. Now and then a sortie took place, but, as the results attained were very small, and were not, on the whole, creditable to our arms, perhaps the less said about them the better. John, of course, went out on these occasions, and then Jess would endure agonies that were all the worse because she was forced to conceal ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... opening cut in the glacis of a place to afford free egress to the troops in case of a sortie. Also, a large port on each quarter of a fire-ship, out of which the officers and crew make their escape into the boats as soon as the train is fired. Also, a place at Portsmouth exclusively set apart for ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... a sortie by a large force of Okarians from an intersecting avenue crumples the head of the column, and the men of Helium go down, fighting, beneath an ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the governor, taking his cue, made a determined sortie and drove back the French light troops, who in the darkness had no sort of notion of the numbers attacking them. So completely hoaxed, indeed, was their commander that he, who had come with two divisions to take Almeida, and held it in the hollow of his hand, decamped early next morning ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... forgotten a most important call at Hanbridge, and would I care to go with him in the car? I was and still am convinced that he was simply inventing. He wanted to break the sinister spell by getting out of the house, and he had not the face to suggest a sortie into the streets of the Five Towns as a ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... second time, encamping at our leisure, and despatching, on the evening of the 5th, Adam Helmer and two other scouts to penetrate to the fort and arrange a sortie by the garrison, simultaneous ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... for reasons sufficient to myself, to get out of Paris by the opposite side. I determined to make my sortie by way of the Temple Market and the Belleville abattoirs. On the thirtieth of April, at an ambitiously early hour, wearing my gardening cap, with my sketch-book sticking out of my pocket, my tin box in one hand and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... blackness which blocked the sky was a man on a great horse; and I was trampled and tossed aside as a swirl of horsemen swept round the corner. As they turned I saw that they were not black, but scarlet; they were a sortie of the besieged, Wayne ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... 4.30 for tea; the journey from Paris was through just the same uninteresting country one always sees when leaving by the Gare de l'Est. I think it is the ugliest sortie of all Paris. As we got near the chateau the Seine appeared, winding in and out of the meadows in very leisurely fashion. We just saw the house from the train, standing rather low. The station is at the park gates—in ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... to offer further resistance, and they resolved on a general sortie to break through the enemy's line to a place of safety. The women of the town put on male attire, and armed themselves with pistols and daggers. The whole population,—men, women, and children,—on the night of the 22d of April, 1826, issued from their defences, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... already awake but lying glowering at the unconscious priest, I despatched him to the jutting platform, with instructions to keep close watch on all movements in the village. Then I busied myself with final preparations for our desperate sortie. The earliest shades of evening would have to be utilized, for then only could we hope for a clear path. Before those wild fanatics swarmed upward to their monthly sacrifice, we must traverse that narrow cliff path and penetrate the tunnel ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... Lion thinks the players are sufficiently near to give him a good opportunity to catch one, he makes a sudden sortie and catches any player that he can. The player is not his prisoner until the Lion has held him and repeated three times "Red Lion!" Both the Lion and his prisoner must hurry back to the den, as all of the other ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... Hunter made his sortie to Gun Hill. The secret was well kept. In the evening, at dark, the battalion was sent to Abattis Hill with orders to entrench, the scheme ostensibly being that a force was to go out and stir up the Boers round Pepworth Hill ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... will survey the caravan from a distance at which they are not likely to be discovered. Then they make their way ahead of it to some point where a dune or a gully will conceal them. Then, just as the end of the caravan drags by, there is a sudden sortie and a rattling musket fire. And before the guards can gather to the defence half a dozen camels are cut out of the train, a driver or two is shot down or pierced with assegais, and both the robbers and their loot are beyond the reach ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... nobleman had brought to the field about four hundred horse and a large body of infantry from the places belonging to his order in Andalusia. Before the intrenchment could be fully completed, Ali Atar, discerning the importance of this commanding station, made a sortie from the town, for the purpose of dislodging his enemies. The latter poured out from their works to encounter him; but the Moslem general, scarcely waiting to receive the shock, wheeled his squadrons round, and began a precipitate retreat. The ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... woodman, though making this nocturnal sortie All armed and equipped, at the rate of 'two-forty,' Called a halt, and proposed, before firing a gun, To question with care what had better be done. Forthwith he assembled a council of war, To gravely consider how fast and how far In a case of this kind it was lawful to go. Some ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and framing kisses with the death-rattle in his throat, and uttering words that made the Sisters of Charity grow pale. Yes, it is the same fevered blood, the same hellish passion that devours you. At Ragusa, on the nights of the sortie, it was at Foedora's that they sought you. I knew it, I knew that she had left her theatre to follow you. I never uttered a single reproach. The honor of your name was saved. And when the King was absent from the ramparts, I took care his ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... plays its comedy. Every individual who does not live either poetically or religiously is a fool" (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift, chap. iv., sect. 2a, Sec. 2). The same writer tells us that Christianity is a desperate sortie (salida). Even so, but it is only by the very desperateness of this sortie that we can win through to hope, to that hope whose vitalizing illusion is of more force than all rational knowledge, and which assures us that there is always something ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... back the way you came, we will meet again on the main road, on the other side of the town. I don't think there is any fear of their making a sortie. Our strength is sure to be greatly exaggerated; and the fugitives, pouring in from each side of the town with their tales, will spread a report that Conde himself, with a whole host of horsemen, is ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... establishment generally conducted themselves with great decorum, lying down and going to sleep as decently as any body present, except when some of the business-loving bluebottles aforesaid would make a sortie upon them, when you might hear the snap of their jaws as they vainly sought to lay hold of the offender. Now and then, between some of the sixthlies, seventhlies, and eighthlies, you might hear some old patriarch giving himself a rousing shake, and pitpatting ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... 1915, was a bad day for Zeppelins. One of the dirigibles supposed to have attacked Ramsgate early that morning was discovered off Nieuport, Belgium, by a squadron of eight British naval machines which had made a sortie from Dunkirk. They surrounded the enemy craft and three of the pilots succeeded in approaching close to the Zeppelin. Four bombs were dropped upon the airship from a height of 200 feet. A column of smoke arose. The Zeppelin looked as ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... novels, "The Two Admirals," makes his hero say to a cavilling friend that if he had not been in the way of good luck, he could not have profited by it. The sortie of the French, the subsequent gale, and the resulting damage were all what is commonly called luck; but if it had not been for Howe's presence off Point Judith threatening them, they would have ridden out the gale at their anchors inside. Howe's energy and his confidence in himself as ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... last night, Sir John, that now they're coming to breakfast! 'Tis just a flourish—no great sortie. Shall a handful of ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... of the Women's Towers swung in. Out of it rushed a sortie of motley soldiery, brandishing weapons and shouting the ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... Commander-in-chief. The roaring of the drum—their alarming outcries, Hell-fire! Hell-fire!—their furious assaults—the multitude of doubts—and the perplexity of poor distracted Mansoul, are admirably and truly narrated. The town makes a sortie in the night, but Diabolus and his legions, experienced in night work, drive them back, and severely wound Captains Faith, Hope, and Experience. Again the gates are assaulted, and Diabolus and his doubters gain an entrance, by the senses, into the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... particulars, and though we tried hard to find out what they had seen or done, we could get nothing from them beyond the general statement that they had had a good time, and that General Trochu had been considerate enough to postpone a sortie, in order to let them return; but this we did not quite swallow. After a day or two they went into Paris again, and I then began to suspect that they were essaying the role of mediators, and that Count Bismarck ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... It was he who had contrived thus far to hold at bay a force of at least five hundred Indians, largely armed with modern firearms. It was he who had led the faithful remnant of his outfit, in a desperate night sortie, from his indefensible camp on the river, and, by a reckless dash, had succeeded in ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... advance on Warsaw checked by arrival of Russian reinforcements; many Germans captured near Lowicz; Austrians capture 2,400 Russians at Pilica; successful sortie by ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... m. W. of Paris; belonged originally to Richelieu; saw the last days of Josephine, whose favourite residence it was, and was the scene of the repulse of Ducrot's sortie in October 1870. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... operating on interior lines, she could cut off either assailant. More depressing yet (and throwing a sad new light on his character), Mr. Wyse seemed to appreciate rather than resent the appropriation of himself, and instead of making a sortie through the beleaguering sables, would beg Diva and Elizabeth, who were so fond of fuchsias and knew about them so well, to put their heads together over an afflicted bed of these flowers in quite another part of the garden, and tell ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... his heart in regard to Tasper Britt. It was plain that they intended to unlock the secret of the money by the use of Britt, going to any lengths of brutality the occasion might demand. To get at Britt they would be obliged to invade the Harnden home. The thought of what might develop from that sortie wrought havoc in Vaniman's soul! His fears for Vona and her mother spurred him to action even more effectively than his conviction that his own cause was lost if the men were able to force the money from Britt. If they were captured it would be like them to incriminate Vaniman ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... mayore and sheriffe praye For peace—to cool the townsmens' ire, Intreatie but impelles the fire. Downe with the Towne! the scholairs cry; Downe with the Gowne! the towne reply. Loud rattle the caps of the clerkes in aire, And the citizens many a sortie beare; And many a churchman fought his waye, Like a heroe in the bloodie fraye. And one right portlie father slewe Of rabble townsmen not a fewe. And now 'mid the battle's strife and din There came to the Easterne gate, The ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... of the Begam's Sepoys and a field piece dashed up, under the command of her chief officer Mr. Thomas. The infantry deployed with the gun in the centre, and threw in a brisk fire of musketry and grape, which checked the sortie, and gave the Imperialists time to form. The Moghul horse lost their leader: on the other side the Chela (adopted son) of the chief was shot dead; Himmat Bahadur, at the head of his Gosains (a kind of fighting friars who were then ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... the last midnight sortie roused a spirit of emulation in the breast of the gallant besieged, for another daring manoeuvre was secretly planned. It was decided that an effort should now be made to destroy an inconveniently active 4.7-inch howitzer which was posted on a height appropriately termed Surprise ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... up to "Ivanhoe," that famous sortie into English history, belong such masterpieces as "Guy Mannering," "Old Mortality," "Heart of Midlothian," "The Bride of Lammermoor," and "Rob Roy"; a list which, had he produced nothing else would have sufficed to place him high among the makers of romance. It is not the intention to analyze ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... the right, under Captain Havelock, composed of one company of the 13th, another of the 35th, and the detachment of sappers under Lieutenant Orr, the whole amounting to 360. Captain Broadfoot lay on his couch, suffering from a dangerous wound received in a sortie on ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... accepted the Alexandrine model of education and literary culture, Juvenal reinvoked the old spirit in his denunciation of the hundred and more trivialities which the new spirit engendered. It was a belated, despairing echo. You cannot expect quite the same shout from a man who leads a forlorn sortie, and a man who defends a proud citadel while yet it is merely threatened. But, allowing for changed circumstances, you will find that Juvenal's is just the old civic spirit turned to fierceness by despair. And he strikes out unerringly ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pretendue plante n'etait au vrai, qu'un insecte semblable a une petite Ortie ou Poulpe. J'avais le plaisir de voir remuer les pattes, ou pieds, de cette Ortie, et ayant mis le vase plein d'eau ou le corail etait a une douce chaleur aupres du feu, tous les petites insectes s'epanouirent ... L'Ortie sortie etend les pieds, et forme ce que M. de Marsigli et moi avions pris pour les petales de la fleur. Le calice de cette pretendue fleur est le corps meme de l'animal avance et sorti ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... capital. From Cambrai the Germans pushed through Amiens to Beauvais; from Peronne to Roye, Montdidier, Creil, and on to the forest of Chantilly. From the region of Le Cateau and St. Quentin the German advance was by Noyon to Compiegne (famous for its memories of Joan of Arc's famous sortie), at which point the Allies made a desperate stand and the Germans had to fight for every inch of ground. They then passed through Senlis, which was first bombarded, down to Meaux, almost within sight of Paris, the head ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... garrison. On the 28th of September some assistance was sent to the besieged by the daring of the Chevalier de Luxembourg. It enabled them to sustain with vigour the fresh attacks that were directed against them, to repulse the enemy, and, by a grand sortie, to damage some of their works, and kill many of their men. But all was in vain. The enemy returned again and again to the attack. Every attempt to cut off their supplies failed. Finally, on the 23rd ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... dear sir, you have moved the tower; I thought you were drinking Madeira. As I said before, to open my fire upon the sou-west tower, or if necessary protect the sugar tongs, which I explained to you was the trench. Just at the same time the besieged were making preparations for a sortie to occupy this dish of almonds and raisins—the high ground to the left of my position—put another log on the fire, if you please, sir, for I cannot see myself—I thought I was up near the figs, and I find myself down near the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... the transports passing to and fro in the narrow seas, and all the while a running fight was kept up with cruisers and battleships that approached too near to the still inviolate shore. So surely as they did so the signals flashed along the coast; and if they escaped at all from the fierce sortie that they provoked, it was with shot-riddled sides and battered top-works, sure signs that the Lion still had claws, and ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... of Badajoz — Sortie by the garrison repulsed — Lawrence takes a prisoner, who proves difficult of persuasion — Lawrence poses as champion of the regimental grog, and is indulged in return with an uncomfortable spell of sentry ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... defied, the bombardment commenced the next day. The fleet anchored in front of a powder-magazine, took possession of the churches of Malate, Ermita, San Juan de Bagumbayan, and Santiago. Two picket-guards made an unsuccessful sortie against them. The whole force in Manila, at the time, was the King's regiment, which mustered about 600 men and 80 pieces of artillery. The British forces consisted of 1,500 European troops (one regiment of infantry and two companies of artillery), 3,000 seamen, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... but spirit- broken. Buckwheat is hopelessly of the stupid lowly. Henry has not yet won his spurs. On our side remain Margaret, Mr. Pike, and myself. The rest will hold the wall of the poop and fight thereon to the death, but they are not to be depended upon in a sortie. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... beginning of the assault, to a height still more exposed, and where the guns from the fortress were tearing up the soil. From this spot a large body of troops were seen rushing from the gate of the fortress, and plunging into the valley. The result of this powerful sortie was soon heard, for every thing was invisible under the thick cloud, which grew thicker every moment, in the volleys of musketry, and the shouts of the troops on both sides. Varnhorst now received an order from the chief of the staff, which produced its effect, in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... general, expecting he would utter the decisive word, and order the garrison to make a sortie. But this order ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... they can to avenge the Battle of the Eclipse. You must also remember that Sir Bevis cannot be always here with his cannon-stick; he is not often here in the morning, and who can tell that some day while he is away Tu Kiu may not appear and, while Choo Hoo makes a sortie and engages Ah Kurroo's attention, come on here and ravage the whole place, destroy all our stores, and leave us without a berry or an acorn! It seems to me that the fox has only got us into a deeper trouble than ever, for if Choo Hoo or Tu Kiu ever does come down upon us, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... Mantua, in which city Wurmser, after the battle of Rivoli, was forced to shut himself up with twenty-eight thousand men; General Miollis, with four thousand only, was investing the place. During a sortie attempted by the Austrians, Murat, at the head of five hundred men, received an order to charge three thousand. Murat charged, but feebly. Bonaparte, whose aide-de-camp he then was, was so irritated that he would not suffer him to remain about him. This was ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... he never saw "the tip-top lass o' the wide world." A time came, however, when McGilveray's last state was worse than his first, and that was the evening before the day Quebec was taken. A dozen prisoners had been captured in a sortie from the Isle of Orleans to the mouth of the St. Charles River. Among these prisoners was the grinning corporal who had captured McGilveray and then ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... heavy stones from the Scots' machines and ceaseless showers of arrows, their men scrambled upon the beach. And now Sir Piers de Currie again rode forward, followed by Kenric, Allan Redmain, Duncan Graham, many men of Bute, and others of Lanark and Ayr. This was the one sortie of the engagement that was in the nature of a real battle. In numbers the ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... arms!" Sir Cuthbert shouted to the archers. "They are going to attempt a sortie." And hastily he retired to the main body of ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... first repulse. During the winter we hear little of her. Her family was ennobled by royal decree, and the district of Domremy made free from all tax or tribute. In the spring the enemy attacked Compiegne. Joan threw herself into the town to save it. She had not been there many hours when, in a sortie, the French were repulsed. Joan and some of her followers remained outside fighting, while the drawbridge was raised and the portcullis dropped by the frightened commandant. The Burgundians crowded around her. Twenty ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... formation would be useful for troops advancing to assault an intrenchment; but, as in the case of a battery, subject to the risk of being destroyed by a sudden sortie from the work. ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... people rent the air with shouts; for this was the signal of the empress's sortie from the palace, and her people knew that she was coming to meet them. At last they saw her; leaning on the arm of the emperor, and followed by her other children, she came, proud and resolute as ever. It was a beautiful sight, this empress with her ten lovely sons and ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... about decided to make another sortie toward the ladder, when I heard a commotion on the bridge, and then a yell as a man might give who had been stricken suddenly with death. It chilled my blood, for I knew that another blow had been struck which took another life on board the Kut Sang, and I realized that the striking of ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... siege have been related in the dispatches from the Field Headquarters during the past week. The capture of the dominating heights in the eastern sector followed close upon the first bombardment. The final desperate sortie led by General Kusmanek at the head of the Twenty-third Division of the Honved precipitated the end. The remnants of the garrison were unable to man the works extending to a ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the valhalla of victory. The surrender of Sedan followed, when the Germans passed on their way to the capital; but the brave general Urich still held out in besieged Strasbourg, and Bazaine had not yet made his last brilliant sortie from the invested Metz. The latter general especially kept the encircling armies of Prince Frederick Charles and Steinmetz on the constant alert by his continuous endeavours to search out the weakest spot in the German armour. The real attempt of the French Marshal to break through the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... sent the next morning for the priests, received the sacrament, and although full of health, took a last farewell of all his friends, telling them that he was about to leave this world. A few hours afterwards, the enemy having made a sortie, Anselme went out against them sword in hand, and was struck on the forehead by a stone from a Turkish sling, which sent him to heaven, to the beautiful palace that ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... though the Americans twice appeared to be regaining the initiative. On August 15 there was a well-earned American victory at Fort Erie, where Drummond's assault was beaten off with great loss to the British. A month later an American sortie was repulsed. On September 21 Drummond retired beaten; and on October 13 he found himself again on the defensive at Chippawa, with little more than three thousand men, while Izard, who had come with American reinforcements from Lake Champlain and Sackett's ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... both suffered a sympathetic anxiety as their father held out at Thionville against the Allies, finally repulsing them by a sortie. This was pure loyalty to the fallen Bonaparte, for Hugo had lost his all in Spain, his very savings having been sunk in real estate, through King Joseph's insistence on his adherents investing to prove they had ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... painted the 'Christ at Emmaus' and the 'Sortie of the Civic Guard,' then Rembrandt had two ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... perch, that they may not sin by eating fowl on Friday. Mergy at last loses patience, and 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, he accelerates his death by a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... importance of that place as a naval and commercial centre, and also focussed about it by far the larger part of the effort and excitement of the first privateering outburst from the United States. As Rodgers' bold sortie, and disappearance into the unknown with a strong squadron had forced concentration upon the principal British vessels, the cruisers remaining for dispersion in search of privateers were numerically inadequate to suppress the many and ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Titus, were still engaged in fighting the flames that devoured these beautiful buildings, and then to surprise the camp beyond. The scheme was such as a madman might have made, seeing that the Romans, warned by the sortie of the morning, had thrown up a wall across the lower part of the Court of Women, and beyond that were protected by every safeguard known to the science of ancient war. Also the moment that the first Jew set his foot upon the staircase, watching sentries cried out in warning and ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard |
