"Ambuscade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold and wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth that year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and by the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up across their way, of patriot patrols on the watch ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... Esmeralda? Well, you don't care! This is dull! Your horse thinks so, too. He gently tries the reins, and, finding that you offer no resistance, he decides to take a little exercise, and starts off at a canter, keeping away from the wall most piously, avoiding the corners as if some Hector might be in ambuscade there to catch and tame him, and rushing on faster and faster, as you do nothing in particular ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... was his prisoner, to Pompeius[360] to propose that they should both meet together on the third day, disband all their forces, and after being reconciled and confirming their union by oath, return to Italy. Pompeius again considered this to be an ambuscade, and hastily going down to the sea he took possession of the posts and places which presented very strong positions for an army; he also seized the naval stations and landing places which were favourable for those who came by sea, so that every wind which blew brought ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... to consider in what manner they should approach the sad and solitary bird, which, unconscious that itself was the object of a formidable ambuscade, stood motionless on a stone, by the brink of the lake, watching for such small fish or water-reptiles as might chance to pass by its lonely station. A brief debate took place betwixt Raoul and the hawk-merchant on the best mode of starting the quarry, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... horse and the bay, came thundering round the curve, there was a fierce splutter of pistol shots from amongst the bushes, and the grey sank down upon its knees with a sobbing moan, struck mortally in the head. Ezra sprang to his feet and rushed at the ambuscade, while the sergeant, who had been grazed on the cheek by the first volley, jumped from his horse and followed him. Burt and Farintosh met them foot to foot with all the Saxon gallantry which underlies ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dear lord whole from any wound. And ever in her mind she cast about For that unnoticed failing in herself, Which made him look so cloudy and so cold; Till the great plover's human whistle amazed Her heart, and glancing round the waste she feared In ever wavering brake an ambuscade. Then thought again, 'If there be such in me, I might amend it by the grace of Heaven, If he would only speak ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... cavalry, and two nine-pounders. He thought he should surprise them, and contrived so that he should come upon them about daybreak. Sheo Ratan knew all his plans. He placed one hundred and fifty of his men in ambuscade at the entrance to the jungle, and kept the other hundred and fifty by him in the centre. When they had got well in, the party in ambush rushed upon the rear, while he attacked them in front. After a short resistance, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... a study of the country to the eastward, showed that a flank movement in that direction would be compelled to follow a circuitous route, and to traverse broken ground, covered with bush and exceedingly favourable to ambuscade and to surprise attacks. Sir Redvers judged that to commit troops, untrained to manoeuvre over terrain of this description and hampered by many ox-wagons, to a rather long flank march in presence of a mobile enemy, would be too dangerous an enterprise. Moreover, ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... permit me to detail this midnight ramble; but it gave Garfield the exact position of the enemy. They had made a stand, and laid an ambuscade for him. Strongly posted on a semicircular hill, at the forks of Middle Creek, on both sides of the road, with cannon commanding its whole length, and hidden by the trees, they were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... host of besiegers were posted, and in my lawn, and along the road, and through the fields: they pursued me; and when I forbade them to speak to me when I was on horseback, the next day I found parties in ambuscade, who laid wait for me in silence, with their hats off, bowing and bowing, till I could not refrain from saying, "Well, my good friend, what do you stand bowing there for?" Then I was fairly prisoner, and held by the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... fight his way back, with the whole country roused. Half the party were then sent back, under the overseer, to conceal themselves in the scrub and allow the natives to pass on in pursuit of the tracks; this ambuscade, however, was scented out by the dogs accompanying the blacks, and the natives halted, poising their spears. One of the men hastily fired, and a retreat was made for the bank of the river by the blacks. The scrub party followed them up ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... to the port by a new route over the mountains, and in doing so escaped an ambuscade which would inevitably have destroyed them all. As it was, they reached the shore only to find more than three hundred cavalrymen charging upon them from the north. As quickly as possible the buccaneers threw themselves into a posture of defense and charged to meet the advancing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... to afford every facility for such an unpleasant interruption. At first it winded apart from the lake through marshy meadow ground, overgrown with copsewood, now traversing dark and close thickets which would have admitted an ambuscade to be sheltered within a few yards of our line of march, and frequently crossing rough mountain torrents, some of which took the soldiers up to the knees, and ran with such violence, that their force ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... silent reply, for, quick as lightning, he had realised that in another few moments they would be forced to fight in defence, and that it was far better to take the initiative and make the enemy believe that they had fallen into an ambuscade. He gave a short nod, raised his own revolver, glanced at Gedge to see that he was ready, and then roared at the top ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... disposed of his wares, and was about to return with the furs he had taken in exchange, when he perceived signs of hostile feeling among some of the young warriors, and on his return, fearing an ambuscade on the great war-path, he left it before he reached the crossing at the French Broad, and went homeward by a less-frequented trail along the Nolachucky. Two other traders, named Boyd and Dagget, who left Echota ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... hostile stream. The endless earth below, The boundless sky above, they know no day Of their return. Their breasts are ever bared To the pitiless steel and all the wounds of war Unspeakable. Methinks I see them now, Dust-mantled in the bitter wind, a host Of Tartar warriors in ambuscade. Our leader scorns the foe. He would give battle Upon the threshold of the camp. The stream Besets a grim array where order reigns, Though many hearts may beat, where discipline Is all, and life of no account. The spear ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... corn on his shoulder, to march to their boats, which were at a landing two or three miles away, they were savagely attacked from both sides of the road. They were compelled to drop the corn and fight for their lives. Wherever there was opportunity for an ambuscade, arrows showered upon them from the woods. They kept up the running fight bravely, returning a steady fire, but probably made little impression on their hidden foes swarming under cover. By the time they reached the boats they had two men killed ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... learned of Herkimer's advance and sent the savages under his command to intercept and ambuscade him. A terrible hand-to-hand combat ensued in which a hundred and sixty of the colonists were killed and the loss to the Indians was as great. General Herkimer's horse was shot under him and he ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... bacchante. The waiters merrily juggled trays, stacked skillfully with vari-colored drinks, and bumped the knees of the close-sitting guests with silvered champagne buckets. Popping corks resounded like the distant musketry of the crack sharp-shooters of the Devil's Own. Indeed, this was an ambuscade of the greatest, oldest, cruellest, most blood-thirsty conflict of civilized history—the War of the Roses—the Massacre of the Innocents! In Bobbie's ears the jangling tambourine, the weird splutterings of ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... number, while his associates led organized bands of rangers; he was thus more often brought into contact with the frontiersmen, but was really hardly as dangerous a foe to them as were one or two of his tory companions.] Most of the men inside the fort were drawn out by a stratagem, fell into an ambuscade, and were slain; but the remainder made good the defence, helped by the women, who ran the lead into bullets, cooled and loaded the guns, and even, when the rush was made, assisted to repel it by firing through the loopholes. After ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... thought. "There is no other course open to us. We shall be compelled to retrace our steps, and if we desire to reach the open before another night, we need be at it. May the good God grant us free passage, with no skulking enemies in ambuscade, for never saw I poorer spot for defence than ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... be called. Men accustomed from infancy to the saddle and the rifle had seized whatever weapon they were possessed of; and more at home on horseback than on foot, they were, no doubt, ugly enemies in a bush fight, or an ambuscade. Many whole companies had no sabers but those their officers carried, and the very individuality and self-reliance of the men acted as an invincible opponent to drill and discipline. Mounted on horses ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... be struck down, Pierced by sword i' the heart, from a hero's hand!' That I had dreamed. O mockery of Fate! —Killed, I! of all men—in an ambuscade! Struck from behind, and by a lackey's hand! 'Tis very well. I am foiled, foiled in all, Even in ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... The general width was about forty feet, and occasionally it diminished so as not to allow the passage of more than five or six persons abreast. In short, there could be no place in the world better adapted for the consummation of an ambuscade, and it was no more than natural that we should look carefully to our arms as we entered upon it. When I now think of our egregious folly, the chief subject of astonishment seems to be, that we should have ever ventured, under any circumstances, so completely ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... remainder were concealed in ambush near the spring with which the garrison was supplied with water. The most experienced of the defenders understood the tactics of their wily foes, and shrewdly guessed that an ambuscade had been prepared in order to cut off the garrison from access to the spring. The water in the station was already exhausted, and unless a fresh supply could be obtained the most dreadful sufferings were ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... fort of Ville-Marie, in order to lay siege to it. They knew beforehand that French arms and gunpowder were rather formidable opponents, especially if they should happen to meet another de Maisonneuve, and, as usual, had recourse to concealment. They formed their ambuscade in a ditch which they dug on the very ground that now forms the garden of the Congregation convent. There they lay hid, reconnoitering the strength of the place, and having matured their plans, commenced hurlling stones and shooting ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... to be considered, and, according to the just conclusion, be obeyed. On all sides of us we see public and private society broken up, as it were by an earthquake: the noblest and the meanest passions of the human bosom at contention, and the latter often so disguised, that the vile ambuscade is not even suspected till found within the heart of the fortress itself. We have, however, one veritable touchstone, that of the truest observation, "ye shall know a tree by its fruits." Let us look ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... rebels who directed his rebellion personally against Gallienus was Aureolus. Passing the Rhaetian Alps, this leader sought out and defied the emperor. He was defeated, and retreated upon Milan; but Gallienus, in pursuing him, was lured into an ambuscade, and perished from the wound inflicted by an archer. With his dying breath he is said to have recommended Claudius to the favor of the senate; and at all events Claudius it was who succeeded. Scarcely was the new emperor installed, before he was summoned to a trial ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... enough to be Christmas trees, grew thinly among loose stones and gravel scaurs. Here and there a big boulder sat quiescent on a knoll, having paused there till the next rain in his long slide down the mountain. There was here no ambuscade for the snakes, you could see clearly where you trod; and yet the higher I went, the more abject and appealing became Chuchu's terror. He was an excellent master of that composite language in which dogs communicate with men, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of fighting was in an ambuscade. That was something peculiar to the Indians. The English had never heard of that way of fighting before they came to America. The Indians would lie down flat on the ground or stand behind trees or in a bush or thicket. When the enemy came along with no suspicion that any ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... meet at once with valor true The attack from an ambuscade, In moral strife, or bloody war, Hath many a ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... interval, 'Twould seem, of many and many an age, not years) How through the Alps, a captain out of Gaul, To war upon the great Viscontis, steers; And seems to straiten Alexandria's wall, Girt with his forces, foot and cavaliers: A garrison within, an ambuscade Without the works, the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... early gray of the morning, the two men directly in his rear, forgetting their orders, suddenly called out, 'Colonel, the British!' faced about, and putting spurs to their horses, were soon out of sight. The colonel, looking around, discovered that he was in the centre of a powerful ambuscade, into which the enemy had silently allowed him to pass, without his observing them. They lined both sides of the road, and had been stationed there to pick up any straggling party of the Americans that might chance to ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... no difference; it was the chance of the sea, and the ill reward of a humane action—a melancholy end for such a man—like the end of a warrior, not dying Epaminondas-like on the field of victory, but cut off in some poor brawl or ambuscade. But so it was with all these men. They were cut off in the flower of their days, and few of them laid their bones in the sepulchres of their fathers. They knew the service which they had chosen, and they did not ask the wages for which they had ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... captain—just why we could probably not have explained—and that afternoon when he was shot to rags from an ambuscade Brayle remained by the body for some time, adjusting the limbs with needless care—there in the middle of a road swept by gusts of grape and canister! It is easy to condemn this kind of thing, and not very difficult to refrain from imitation, but it is impossible not to respect, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... the team into a run, and they had just begun to hope the ambuscade had been passed, when three more Boers sprang out of the willows ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... And less inclined to do you ill, Mutter'd some words, withheld her arm And kindly stoppld the unfinish'd charm But though not changed to owl or bat, Or something more indelicate; Yet, as your tongue has run too fast, Your boasted beauty must not last, No more shall frolic Cupid lie In ambuscade in either eye, >From thence to aim his keenest dart To captivate each youthful heart: No more shall envious misses pine At charms now flown, that once were thine: No more, since you so ill behave, Shall injured ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... the natives had been won by the diplomatic French, but their aid proved of no avail. The British Parliament sent over General Braddock in 1757, and he perished with a large portion of his army in the celebrated ambuscade from which Washington escaped.[17] For a time French energy made the war seem not unequal; but the number of French in America was small; the home Government of Louis XV seemed wholly lost in sloth and indifferent to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the purple was the Prince Imperial, whose fate beggars tragedy; who went to gather laurels on an African desert and fell a victim to a savage ambuscade—his beautiful body stuck almost as full of cruel darts as that of the ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... treachery, and implored Renaud not to believe him; but the brave young hero, relying upon Iwo's promise, set out without arms to seek the emperor's pardon. On the way, however, the four sons of Aymon fell into an ambuscade, whence they would scarcely have escaped alive had not one of the brothers drawn from under his robe the weapons Clarissa ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... national government a portent to popular liberties. In the office of President he perceived "the likeness of a kingly crown." In the control of the purse and the sword, he foresaw the extinction of freedom. In the power to make treaties, to regulate commerce, and to adopt laws, he discerned an "ambuscade" in which the rights of the States and of the people would be destroyed unawares. To these alarming predictions the advocates of ratification replied with strong and temperate reasoning, and, while ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... not take fifteen minutes, and then we could see the fight at Hougoumont; the blazing buildings, the bursting of the bombs from second to second among the ruins, and the Scotch chasseurs in ambuscade in the road in the rear of the place, and on our right about two gunshots distant, the first line of the English artillery, falling back on their centre, and stationing their cannon, which our gunners had begun to dismount, higher up the hill. But the remainder of their line did not change; they ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... troops about 11.00 A.M., and passing from one column to another, incautiously rode upon an ambuscade without apprehension, at some distance ahead of his staff and orderlies, and was ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... was neither overly imaginative nor of a romantic turn of mind; but, the circumstances reviewed, it's nothing to his discredit that he entertained a passing suspicion of some curious conspiracy against the girl, thought of an ambuscade, and with quick eyes raked the surroundings for signs of ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... till the bottom ceases; the right thenceforth becomes the more favorable side for marching. With great pomp, he recrossed the Monongahela just below the point where Turtle Creek enters from the east. Within a hillside ravine, but a hundred yards inland, the brilliant column fell into an ambuscade of Indians and French half-breeds, suffering that heart-sickening defeat which will ever live as one of the most tragic events ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... accompany and have power over the vicious. Several warriors have told me," he says, "that their Nana Ishtohoollo, 'concomitant Holy Spirits,' or angels, have forewarned them, as by intuition, of a dangerous ambuscade, which must have been attended with certain death, when they were alone and seemingly out of danger; and, by virtue of the impulse, they immediately darted off, and with extreme difficulty escaped the crafty, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... peeps through trees: "You mind the fight in the haunted house? That's it; we clenched them in the room— An ambuscade of ghosts, we thought, But proved sly rebels on a house! Luke lies in the yard." The chimneys loom: Some muse ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... them by tradition. The grossest of these exaggerations are contained in Thatcher's Military Journal and in Drake's Book of the Indians. The account of the marching out of a large body of the Americans from one of the forts to hold a parley, by agreement, and then being drawn into an ambuscade and all put to death, is false; the account of seventy continental soldiers being butchered after having surrendered, is totally untrue. No regular troops surrendered, and all escaped who survived the battle ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... Fortunately by this time we had taken over the 6th Kentucky and 9th Tennessee of my brigade—aggregating nearly six hundred men—and also the two pieces of artillery. These regiments were moved beyond Burkesville and placed in a position which served all the purposes of an ambuscade. When the enemy approached, one or two volleys caused his column to recoil in confusion. General Morgan instantly charged it with Quirk's scouts and some companies of the 9th Tennessee, and not only prevented it from rallying, but drove it all the way back to Marrowbone, entering the encampment ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... Sizer and Val Carlos, this rearguard was unexpectedly attacked by thousands of Basque mountaineers, who were joined by thousands of Arabs eager to massacre and plunder the Christians and Franks, who, indeed, perished to a man in this ambuscade. "The news of this disaster," says Eginhard, in his Annales, "obscured the glory of the successes the king had but lately obtained in Spain." This fact, with large amplifications, became the source of popular legends ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... A dark wave of men rushed from the ambuscade, surged up round the car, ... swept forward.... She had disappeared, and, as Philammon followed breathless, the horses galloped past him madly ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... to fall, not only upon their enemies, but also on their neighbours, in the hope either of robbing them when off their guard, or of obtaining a ransom for any unwary traveller who might fall into their hands. Everywhere society was in ambuscade, and waged civil war—individual against individual—without peace or mercy. Such was the reign of feudalism. It is unnecessary to point out how this system of perpetual petty warfare tended to reduce ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... credit him with so much acumen. And from his absence her courage gained strength. If it could only be prolonged until Ahmed reached her. That the Sheik would come she knew, her faith in him was unbounded. If he only came in time! Hours had passed since the ambuscade had surprised them. It had been early afternoon then. Now the lighted lamp told her it was night. How late she did not know. Her watch had been broken some months before, and she had no means of even guessing the hour, but it must ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... terrors of the midnight raid, The-death-concealing ambuscade, The winter march, through deserts wild, Of captive mother, wife, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... high), and, having hewn them, to carry them underground (they weigh on an average between sixty and seventy tons), and finally to range them in rows here in these strange chambers, where they stand as if in ambuscade on either side of us as we pass? Each in its turn has contained quite comfortably the mummy of a bull Apis, armoured in plates of gold. But in spite of their weight, in spite of their solidity which effectively defies destruction, ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... grim determination to advance civilization; on the other, just as grim a determination to resist it. The savage, employing the same arts in his wars with the white man as he did in his wars with his fellow savage, used stealth and cunning, the ambuscade, the scalping knife, and the tomahawk, and tortured his victims at the stake. A terrible hatred was engendered, that meant death and extermination. In the sanguinary struggles that followed, many outrages were no doubt perpetrated by lawless ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... Through the woven ambuscade That the twining vines had made, They found the grapes, in clusters, Drinking up the shine and shade— Plumpt like tiny skins of wine, With a vintage so divine That the tongue of fancy tingled With ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... the adverse Party, and there dress up Logs of Wood in their Cloaths, and make them exactly seem like Indians, that were asleep by the Fireside; (which is their Way, when in the Woods) so, said they, our Enemies will fire upon these Images, supposing them to be us, who will lie in Ambuscade, and, after their Guns are unloaded, shall deal well enough with them. This Result was immediately put in Execution, and the Fire was made by the side of a Valley, where they lay perdu very advantageously. Thus, a little before Break of Day, (which commonly is the Hour ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... Baden-Powell, and if he had not been locked up in Mafeking all through those precious months at the beginning of the war, it is no idle guesswork to say that we should have lost fewer men and fewer guns by surprise and ambuscade. ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... secluded encampment, and with a few chosen troops floated down the stream in barges, disguised as merchant boats. Landing in the night beneath the high and precipitous banks near the town, he placed a number of his soldiers in ambuscade, and then calling upon the princes of Kief, informed them that he had been sent by the king of Novgorod, with a commercial adventure down the Dnieper, and invited ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... perpendicularly up like the spire of a church, others running along in broken ridges, or presenting the appearance of high embattled walls; here riven into deep gullies, there opening into wild savage glens, fit spots for robber ambuscade; now presenting a fair smooth surface, now jagged, shattered, shelving, roughened with brushwood; sometimes bleached and hoary, as in the case of the pinnacled crag called the White Kirk; sometimes green with moss or grey with lichen; ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... picturesque incident in its scenic character, but a still more engaging one as an occurrence in the path of discovery. Here was most unexpectedly brought to view a new link in the chain of our story. It was a pleasant surprise to have such a fact as this breaking upon us from an ambuscade, to help out a half-formed narrative which I had feared was hopeless of completion. The inscription is a necessary supplement to the marginal notes. As an insulated monument, it is meagre in its detail, and stands in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... rooted to the spot, and listened. An awful silence seemed to fall upon the place. Had he hit on the Templeton ghost?—on the disembodied spirit of some luckless martyr to the ferocity of a last century bully? Or, was it an ambuscade prepared for himself? or, ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... farewells were smuggled through under an ambuscade of laughter, and the parting over ere I knew it was begun. The figures vanished, the steps died away along the silent city front; on board, the men had returned to their labours, the captain to his solitary cigar; and after ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... famous captain at their head. One of them—an old friend—reined in long enough to tell me they were off to lie in wait for a small British patrol, which, a native had told them, daily passed a certain spot suitable for an ambuscade. ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... side of the coach to watch his proceedings. Not a stir did the brave old knight make, but sat as still as marble, and even held his breath, lest the ghost might feel it warm upon his hand, and so discover their ambuscade. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Daniel came, he resumed his seat by the stove, and remained silent for a while. Then, without the slightest warning or apparent motivation, he began to discuss religion. And how? With the old spirit of defiance, as if from an ambuscade from which he could send out his poisoned arrows, with calculating maliciousness and cold rebellion, with the air of a man who has been defeated, who is now being pursued, and who is willing to concede more to the ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... at the crank, of course. He went at his work with a rigid courage. His red-hot anger had cooled down into a shape that was like a bar of forged steel. He meant to make that light revolve if it killed him to do it. He was the captain of a company that had run into an ambuscade. He was going to fight his way through if he ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... preparing, at sunrise, to pitch his camp, the Moorish cavalry announced that Jugurtha was encamped about two miles in advance. At this report, great dismay fell upon our men; for they believed themselves betrayed by Volux, and led into an ambuscade. Some exclaimed that they ought to take vengeance on him at once, and not suffer such perfidy ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... barking like a cayote, and that I would answer him by gobbling like a turkey; that he must meet me at Sand Point at three o'clock sharp, and if he was not there at that time I would know that something was wrong. I also told him to be careful and not run into an ambuscade, but above all not to be taken prisoner. Then I asked him if he could bark like a cayote. His answer was: "Sure, Captain, it's mesilf that can make a bloody cayote ashamed of himself bairking, and I belave ye's is afraid ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... through the hole to test the truth of the prognostication. The hour of five completed itself on their watches; the girl again came forward. And then the three in ambuscade could see her pull out her handkerchief and place it to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... of Beder. The history of the battle is thus given by Abulfeda: "The apostle, hearing that a caravan of the Meccans was coming home from Syria, escorted by Abu Sofian at the head of thirty men, placed a number of soldiers in ambuscade to intercept it. Abu Sofian, being informed thereof by his spies, sent word immediately to Mecca, whereupon all the principal men except Abu Laheb—who, however, sent Al Asum son of Hesham in his stead—marched out to his assistance, making in all nine hundred and fifty men, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... commanders, set in irresistibly against them, before taking refuge inside the walls of the city. An hour after parting from Mr. Chambers I am wheeling briskly down the same road on the eastern slope of the pass where Mukhtar Pasha's ill-fated column was drawn into the fatal ambuscade that suddenly turned the fortunes of the day against them. While rapidly gliding down the gentle gradient, I fancy I can see the Cossack regiments, advancing toward the Turkish position, the unwary and over-confident Osmanlis leaping ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... childhood, who existed for the express purpose of making money for the support and pleasure of his family, and to accommodate all its whims, with the man before me,—barely forty-eight, without a wrinkle in his firm, ruddy face, and only an occasional white hair, in ambuscade among his fair, curly locks. My exclusive right over him I felt doubtful about. I gave my attention to the road also, and remarked that I thought the season ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... hunter accomplishes this by means of a pitfall, covered with branches and palm-leaves; at other times, he places himself in ambuscade, either before twilight or in the early morning, and shoots the unsuspecting animal as it approaches on its ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... the soothsayers, he took the field with his colleague, and harassed Hannibal much in the country between the towns of Bantia and Venusia. Hannibal declined battle, but, learning that a force was detached from the Roman army to attack the Epizephyrian Lokrians, he laid an ambuscade on the mountain near Petelia, and defeated them with a loss of two thousand five hundred men. This excited Marcellus, and he led his forces nearer to those of Hannibal. There was between the two camps ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... if the evidence were such as to commend itself at once to our understanding, is one which need only be stated to be set aside. It is blasphemy against the goodness of God to suppose that He has thus laid as it were an ambuscade for man, and will only let him escape on condition of his consenting to violate one of the very most precious of God's own gifts. There is an ingenious cruelty about such conduct which it is revolting even to imagine. ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... offers are precisely what they were, what they have always been: "Convention of Hanover; that, in all its parts; old treaty of Breslau, to be guaranteed, to be actually kept. To me Silesia sure;—from you, Polish Majesty, one million crowns as damages for the trouble and cost this Triple Ambuscade of yours has given me; one million crowns, 150,000 pounds we will say; and all other requisitions to cease on the day of signature. These are my terms: accept these; then wholly, As you were, Empress-Queen and you, and all surviving creatures: and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... o'clock when we formed our little ambuscade. Hopkins was for leaving the door of the hut open, but Holmes was of the opinion that this would rouse the suspicions of the stranger. The lock was a perfectly simple one, and only a strong blade was needed to push it back. Holmes also suggested that we should wait, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... startled movements, by sudden alarms, by disturbed rest, by stifled sighs—reigns throughout. We are surrounded by such scenes and feelings as might arise among those who had been surprised and encompassed on all sides by an ambuscade, the vast sweep of whose horizon reveals not a single ground for hope, and whose despair had giddied the brain, like a draught of that wine of Cyprus which gives a more instinctive rapidity to all our gestures, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... half-extended arm, and, with a significant look, made him return the poinard into his bosom, unseen by all except himself; for most of the party were disputing at a distant window, on the situation of a dell where they meant to form an ambuscade. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... bloodless countenance, and a look of horror. Without a word, he pointed to the door; I followed the direction, and saw what might well justify his feelings. The troop of yeomanry had been attacked on their return from patrolling the country; an ambuscade had been laid for them by a large force of the insurgents, in one of the narrow roads which bordered the demesne, and where, from its vicinity, they had imagined themselves secure. As they moved down this defile with their noble commandant at their head, a heavy fire of musketry ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... a click from above. I ascended a flight of dark stairs, at the top of which there was ranged an ambuscade of numerous small Guggenheims who had gushed out in their underdrawers and petticoats. Their mother, in curl-papers, gave explicit directions for ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... for a month, without result; a tremendous assault had been repulsed with heavy loss to the besiegers, who were growing disheartened. The Corsair assembled a body of Moors and Turks and attempted to relieve the fortress; but his ambuscade failed, His[a]r's simultaneous sally was driven back, and Dragut, seeing that he could do nothing, fled to Jerba. His retreat gave fresh energy to the siege, and a change of attack discovered the weak places of the defence. A vigorous assault on the 8th of ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... his followers, upon landing, sat down upon the beach for breakfast; but their repast was rudely disturbed by a shower of stones from an ambuscade of Typees in the edge of the wood. Stopping but a moment to finish their food, the jackies picked up their cutlasses and muskets, and started for the enemy. They were soon in the shady recesses of the tropical forest, but not a Typee was to be ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... hesitated, and seemed reluctant to move, although the chief addressed them twice for the purpose of urging them: on inquiring the reason, Cameahwait told him that some foolish person had suggested that he was in league with their enemies the Pahkees, and had come only to draw them into ambuscade, but that he himself did not believe it: captain Lewis felt uneasy at this insinuation: he knew the suspicious temper of the Indians, accustomed from their infancy to regard every stranger as an enemy, and saw that if this suggestion were not instantly checked, it might hazard ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... for his presence with the forces was imperative and he grudged every hour of absence from his beloved, he set out alone in his boat. Before an hour had passed he was captured by a flotilla which had been lying in ambuscade behind the Grandes Rocques, and was a prisoner in the ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... wild hog which they had killed. The Mexicans had only one horse and one gun between them. One of them took the horse and the other took the carbine. Not daring to follow the one with the gun for fear of ambuscade, the Indians gave chase to the vaquero on horseback, whom they easily captured. After stripping him of all his clothing, they tied his hands with thongs, and pinned the poor devil to a tree with ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... and, consequently, there was little cause of immediate alarm, the worthy publican carried on his shoulder a musket on full cock; and each moment he kept peeping about, as if not only every bush, but every blade of grass contained an ambuscade, ready to spring up the instant he was off his guard. By his side the redoubted Jacobina, who had transferred to her new master, the attachment she had originally possessed for the Corporal, trotted peeringly along, her tail perpendicularly cocked, and her ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... illustration, as showing the persecution to which stage celebrities are often subjected: While she was in her stage-box at the Paris Opera one night, in the winter of 1836, she observed an unfortunate admirer, who had pursued her for months, lying in ambuscade near the door, as if awaiting her exit. M. Robert, one of the managers, requested the intruder to retire, and, as the admonition was unheeded, Colonel Ragani, Grisi's uncle, somewhat sternly remonstrated with him. The reckless lover drew a sword from a cane, ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... their lonely situation, stole away from their "forms," to speak in the hunter's phrase, and sought to rejoin each other. But in these attempts they were liable to surprises from the enemy; papa and mamma were both on the alert, and often intercepted the young deserter by a cross march or an ambuscade; in which cases each had a separate policy for enforcing obedience. The father, upon his general system of "perseverance," compelled the fugitive back to his quarters, and, in effect, exhorted him to persist in being frightened out of his wits. To his wife's gentle ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... bloodless victory having been somewhat minimized by the townspeople, Pierre and his wife, with a view to establishing a strong claim for subsequent reward, bribed Antoine Macquart to lead the Republicans left in Plassans to an attack on the town hall. To meet this he prepared a strong ambuscade, and the Republicans were repulsed with considerable loss. As a result of this treachery, Pierre was regarded by his fellow-citizens as the saviour of the town, and the Government subsequently appointed him Receiver of Taxes, decorating him with ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... lovely Gunning's—Maria Coventry. And though I won't flatter you, child, by saying your bloom equals hers (for I can't tell what hers may be under the white lead she lays on so thick), yet I will say that your Irish eyes may ambuscade to the full as well beneath it, though they won't shoot an earl flying, like hers, because you ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... to accept of the proposal, and the next morning with ten of his sailors, all dressed in their best clothes, went on shore to this collation. But before they had reached half way, they were set upon by a party of Indians who lay in ambuscade, and with one flight of their poisoned arrows laid them all upon the ground, except Kennedy and another, who escaped to the top of a mountain, from whence they leaped into the sea, and were with much difficulty taken up by a boat which their companions ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... that he had reconnoitred sufficiently to satisfy himself that the girl was alone and that no trick, no ambuscade, threatened him. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... within the Indian lines and cut to pieces, Girty demands the surrender of Wheeling, Col. Zane's reply, Indians attacks the fort and retire, Arrival of col. Swearingen with a reinforcement, of captain Foreman, Ambuscade at Grave creek narrows, conspiracy of Tories discovered and defeated, Petro and White taken prisoners, Irruption into Tygarts Valley, Murder at Conoly's ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... warlike people, despite their own traditions. Sporadic forays, fostered by their ignorant dread of one another or stirred up by rival medicine-men, there may have been between different tribes—and there certainly were between the Indians and the Esquimaux—with ambuscade and slaughter of isolated hunting parties that ventured too far beyond the confines of their own territory; and one such affair would furnish tradition for generations to dilate upon. I have myself found all ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... where the infantry were quartered, slaughtered the surprised Scots at their leisure. Luckily for Mar, the whole of his knights and men-at-arms were far away, uselessly watching the bridge, over which they had expected the disinherited to force a passage. Thus saved from the night ambuscade, the kernel of the Scottish army prepared next morning, August 12, to attack the disinherited. Puffed up by the memory of Bannockburn and the consciousness of superior numbers, they marched to battle as if certain of victory. All fought ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... of the Crows put up a good fight, and managed to squirm away from the gagging boxing-gloves and let out a yelp; but the heavy door of the gymnasium kept the secret mum, and there was something so surprising about the ambuscade in the dark that the Dozen soon had the half-dozen securely gagged and fettered. Then they were toted like meal-bags up the stairs of the chapel, and on up and up into the loft, and into the bell-tower. There ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... that terminated in a low range of hills. The slopes of the rising ground were fairly steep except at a gap in the centre, where a deep ravine had been utilized by the makers of the road. It was an ideal spot for an ambuscade. Sheltering behind the cacti that abundantly covered the hill the Haussas could extend on a fairly broad front, and concentrate a heavy fire upon any enemy retiring along the path. The maxim on its tripod mounting was set ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... grievously disappointed. Vague general phrases, founded on a priori reasoning rather than on observation, together with a few statistical tables—which the cautious investigator should avoid as he would an ambuscade—are too often all that is to be found. Through the thin veil of pseudo-erudition the real facts are clear enough. These philosophical legislators, who have spent their lives in the official atmosphere ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... and stealthily creeping along, we gained a small rise of ground which commanded a more extended view than most places in the Black Forest, and, but for the thickness of the trees, we could have seen our own camping-place and the part where the ambuscade had been laid. From sounds of the voices, we could tell that the ruffians were leading their prisoners to the spot where we had passed the night, and the most fearful oaths and imprecations could ever and anon be heard. Well might our hearts beat with apprehension, for it was known ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... than 250,000 persons, only about 100,000 crossed into Asia Minor. The fate of these was no better than that of those who had perished in Hungary and Bulgaria. After grievous suffering and loss they at last reached Nicaea. There they fell into an ambuscade; and out of the whole of the undisciplined masses who had followed Peter the Hermit, it is doubtful ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... of subjects for satire in his life and character, since an accident, which might have happened to the greatest hero who ever lived, was resorted to as an imputation on his honour. The Rose-alley ambuscade became almost proverbial;[22] and even Mulgrave, the real author of the satire, and upon whose shoulders the blows ought in justice to have descended, mentions the circumstance in his "Art of Poetry;" with a cold ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... the Indians had made themselves thus "completely frightful", it was nearly one in the morning. Then, finding all the Eskimo quiet in their tents, they rushed forth from their ambuscade, and fell on the poor, unsuspecting creatures, unperceived till they were close to the very eaves of the tents. A horrible massacre forthwith took place, while Hearne stood neutral in ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... all gone back? Might not others—stimulated by a more eager spirit of vengeance, or the ambition of striking a glorious coup by my capture—have continued the pursuit? If so we might expect to encounter them on their return; or, if first perceived, we might fall into an ambuscade. In either case should they chance to outnumber us—to any great extent—a collision would be ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... upon her father. Then she dug four pits for us to lie in, and sat down to wait till we should come up. When we were close to her, she made us lie down in the pits one after the other, and threw a seal skin over each of us. Our ambuscade would have been intolerable, for the stench of the fishy seals was most distressing {45}—who would go to bed with a sea monster if he could help it?—but here, too, the goddess helped us, and thought of something that gave us great relief, for she put some ambrosia under each man's nostrils, ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers lying in ambuscade among the dishes. Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal but man keeps to one dish. Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and flesh of a third. Man falls upon everything that comes ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... acquaintance of an odd character—a young fellow who in turns betrayed both royalists and republicans. My relations with him recall a somewhat droll occurrence. I found that he was guiding the regiment I commanded into an ambuscade of the insurgents, and I ordered him to be hung to the first tree we should meet with. Fortunately for him my men translated the order in its most literal sense; and being at the time in the middle of vast savannahs entirely destitute of trees, the execution was held over, as it was an impossibility ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... confidence was passed in full lodge, and so for the time the matter ended. When a few weeks later it was reported in the papers that Wilcox had been shot at from an ambuscade, it was an open secret that McMurdo was still at ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Illustration: AN AMBUSCADE.—Captain de Smythe insidiously beguiles the fair Laura and her sister to a certain secluded spot where, as he happens to know, his hated rival, Mr. Tomkyns, is in the habit of secretly practising on the bicycle. He (Captain de S.) ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... claws, before coming to close quarters. The sally, however, was premature, and proved entirely unsuccessful, for the crabs backed and sidled into their burrows with such expedition, that the last of them disappeared before their assailant could get within reach. Leaving Johnny to renew his ambuscade, if so disposed, I proceeded along the reef, and found Max and Browne bathing for the second time that day. They had discovered a charming place for the purpose, where a kind of oval basin was formed by the lagoon setting into the inside of the reef. The water was ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer |
