"Sortie" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his 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 a seaman ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... 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
... the Texan sharpshooters lined the walls, and they fired occasionally at indistinct and flitting figures, but they were quite certain that they did no execution. The darkness was too great. Travis, Bowie and Crockett considered the possibility of a sortie, but they decided that it had no chance of success. The few score Texans would be overwhelmed in the open plain by the thousands ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... merely a series of combats between small detachments and bodies of the enemy. Two or three knights with their retainers and slaves would start forth, cross the stream, and riding right past the besieged city endeavour to sack some small hamlet, or the homestead of a noble. From the city a sortie would ensue; sometimes the two bodies only threatened each other at a distance, the first retiring as the second advanced. Sometimes only a few arrows were discharged; occasionally they came to blows, but the casualties ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... 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 ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... 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
... 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 ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... 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 of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... in the van, it seemed that the British sailors were in a parlous plight and that their sortie must fail. Craftily the pirates manoeuvered to drive them back into the forecastle and there to ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... united in the resolution to offer to the President of the Confederation the title of Emperor. Accordingly, on Jan. 18, 1871, King William, in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, was formally proclaimed Emperor of Germany. On the next day Trochu led the final sortie from Paris, of a hundred thousand men, which was repulsed after a severe contest. The provisions in the city were nearly exhausted, and on Jan. 23 an armistice for twenty-one days was signed. Paris surrendered on the 28th; and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... administration of General von der Goltz had merely a temporary character. We knew that most of the high officials were stopping in Brussels on their way to Paris. On the other hand, any skilful move of the Allies, any successful sortie from Antwerp, might have jeopardized all the conqueror's plans and necessitated an immediate retreat. The Yser-Ypres struggle barred the way to Brussels as well as to Calais. The Germans knew now that they were safe, ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... state, on the 15th of June, by the Parisians, to the 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, armed, with his men, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... it was his duty to buy cigars in consideration of the use of the hitching-rack. Wood appeared in the office door as they came up the steps, and put his head beyond the jamb, looking this way and that, like a man considering a sortie with enemies lying ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... 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 with ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... gardener wanted to know whether there were still many to come, and he was thirsty besides, with the sun beating down upon his head. So then, suddenly, his daughter would leap out, as though from a beleaguered city, would make a sortie, turn the street corner, and, having risked her life a hundred times over, reappear and bring us, with a jug of liquorice-water, the news that there were still at least a thousand of them, pouring along without a break from the direction of Thiberzy and Meseglise. Francoise and the gardener, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... was coming, and the Boers could never lie down to sleep with the assurance that they would not be awakened by the rattle of British musketry and the dread "Reveille" of cold steel. Here is one instance. Knowing that the Boers fear the bayonet more than rifle bullets, Baden-Powell determined upon a sortie in which his men should get within striking distance of the large army closing round the town. One night he sent fifty-three men with orders to use only the bayonet, and this insignificant force crept silently to the enemy's trenches in the darkness, ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... Gravelotte to add their thousands of victims to 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 ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... rats in a trap, grimly held on, realizing that it was to be a siege. On the following morning, a detachment of F Company arrived, dragging two gatling guns. The Hollmans saw them detraining, from their lookout in the courthouse cupola, and, realizing that the end had come, resolved upon a desperate sortie. Simultaneously, every door and lower window of the court-house burst open to discharge a frenzied rush of men, firing as they came. They meant to eat their way out and leave as many hostile dead as possible in their wake. Their one chance now was to scatter before the machine-guns ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... 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 ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... village, situate half a mile from the eastern gate of the city, so constant and harassing a fire was maintained, by the enemy, that General Primrose resolved to make a sortie, to capture it. The affair was, however, badly planned, and resulted in failure. The Afghans—sheltered in the strongly-built houses—kept up so severe a fire upon the assailants that these were obliged to fall back, with a considerable loss. After that, no further sorties were attempted; ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... but 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
... always on the side nearest the spring. The whole structure of the fort was bullet-proof and was erected without an iron nail or spike. In the border wars these forts withstood all attacks. The savages, having proved that they could not storm them, generally laid siege and waited for thirst to compel a sortie. But the crafty besieger was as often outwitted by the equally cunning defender. Some daring soul, with silent feet and perhaps with naked body painted in Indian fashion, would drop from the wall under cover of the ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... of bales of hemp to be transported to the point from which the advance of his troops had been repeatedly repulsed. They were ranged in a line for a breastwork, and, when rolled before the men as they advanced, formed a moving rampart which was proof against shot, and only to be overcome by a sortie in force, which the enemy did not dare to make. On came the hempen breastworks, while Price's artillery continued an effective fire. In the afternoon of the 20th the enemy hung out a white flag, upon which ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... moved on Enna. The rebels defended their last stronghold with the utmost courage and persistence. Achaeus seems to have already fallen, but the brave Cilician leaders still held out with all the native valour of their race. Cleon made a sortie from the town and fought heroically until he fell covered with wounds. Cleon's brother Coma[294] was captured during the siege and brought before Rupilius, who questioned him about the strength and the plans of the remaining fugitives. He ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... admitted, he introduced what he could of rich detail. In the picture of Israel Blessing the Sons of Joseph, Asenath, as the wife of an Egyptian official, is appropriately adorned with jewels and finery. In the Sortie of the Civic Guard, Captain Cocq is ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... maid-servant was scrubbing 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
... fanned and patted her into wakefulness again and then turned desperately to the window and looked down. There was no one he knew or who knew him as far as he could tell on the street, and he determined recklessly to risk another sortie ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... think small of me, if so you must, my dears, when I confess what followed after. No man is braver than his opportunity, and I had little stomach for a fight with three unwounded men. Hence it was narrowed now to a bold sortie for the horses, and this I made while yet the captain hung in ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... had 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 ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... kurumaya 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, and an old woman at the bow, fully ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... said, in her account of the affair, "that the savages would suppose it to be a ruse to draw them towards the fort, in order to make a sortie upon them. They did suppose so; and thus I was able to save the Fontaine family. When they were all landed, I made them march before me in full sight of the enemy. We put so bold a face on it, that they thought they had more to fear than we. Strengthened by this reinforcement, ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... to witness their development or their prosperous application. More than one military plan was entered upon which she did not approve. But she still continued to expose her person as before. Severe wounds had not taught her caution. And at length, in a sortie from Compiegne (whether through treacherous collusion on the part of her own friends is doubtful to this day), she was made prisoner by the Burgundians, and finally surrendered ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Another sortie and another. Bit by bit the porch is ripped and torn to rubbish. You smile. It seems so futile. What are these kindlings saved when the whole house is burning? Is this what you call heroism? Yet the charge at Balaklava was not more futile. It had even less of commonsense, less of hope of benefit ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... that we had repulsed the enemy without the loss of a single inch of ground. General Terry bade me mount again and tell Colonel Shaw that he was proud of the conduct of his men, and that he must still hold the ground against any future sortie of the enemy. You can even now share with me the sensation of ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... engagement was a success for the Dutch, who undertook, when the Chinese first encamped, to bombard them with all their cannon at once; and, having thus demolished their huts and fortifications, the Dutch made a bold sortie, spiked six of the enemy's cannon, cut to pieces the garrison, 3,000 in number, and were carrying away nineteen pieces of artillery to the fort. But another Sangley officer hurried up with his regiment and attacked the Dutch with such fury that they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... 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 valiant dame.'" Modern etiquette would hardly speak in praise ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... Vaudreuil hastens thither, accompanied by de Subercase and other officers; they are all eager to measure their strength with the enemy, but the order of Denonville is strict, they must remain on the defensive and run no risk. By dint of insistence, Subercase obtained permission to make a sortie with a hundred volunteers; at the moment when he was about to set out he had to yield the command to M. de Saint-Jean, who was higher in rank. The little troop went and entrenched itself among the debris of a burned house and exchanged an ineffectual fire with ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... 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 like gentlemen and ladies, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... when 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 ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... attack? Suppose I beat them? They have but a mile to fall back, and they are stronger posted than before. I can not pass the Harlem with any chance of remaining, unless I leave here in New York a garrison of at least six thousand regulars. This gives me but three thousand regulars for a sortie." He moved his head slowly, his eyes traveled from one to another with that heavy, dazed ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... 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 ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... merit 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 watcher, turn by turn, was always waiting. The Commandant liked the ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... sepulchres which everything tends to assign to the same race and the same period.[316] The sepulchral crypts of Missouri contain several skeletons which had been subjected to intense heat. The human bones were mixed with the remains of animals, fragments of charcoal, and pieces of pottery, with sortie flint weapons. In a neighboring mound excavations revealed no trace of cremation; the bodies were stretched out upon the ground, and those who discovered them picked up near them a valuable collection of flints and of carefully made pottery. There is however nothing to show whether ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... 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
... too, that Captain Frank Tidy, of the Toronto Battalion, astonished the brigade by making a sortie from the trench in daytime and bringing in two prisoners whom he had observed moving in the tall wheat that here and there shut off our view of ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... 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 March the movement began, followed ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... next day at the grand parade of arms. Yes, on Tuesday evening, take with you forty men to Pembina. Of course, you go there with all speed, and locate the residence. Then on Tuesday night, when you enter the city, surround the house by a sortie You will have nothing to fear from the citizens, they have no force there to oppose yours, and if they had you could accomplish your mission so suddenly that you might be on the prairie with your prize before they had their arms in their hands." The horseman ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... indicated the presence of some thing, or creature, that did not properly belong to the vicinity. After consulting with the corporal, Pigeonswing was called; and leaving him as a sentinel at the gate, the two others made a sortie. The corporal was as brave as a lion, and loved all such movements, though he fully anticipated encountering savages, while his companion expected an interview ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... established 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 to drive our ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... 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 ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... 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, an hour after the bugle had ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... brothers, with the 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 ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... The reign of the saints was now fairly begun. Various attempts at an organized communism were made, but these appear to have been only partially successful. One day Jan Matthys with twenty companions, in an access of fanatical devotion, made a sortie from the town towards the bishop's camp. Needless to say, the party were all killed. The great leader dead, Jan Bockelson became naturally the chief of the city and head of ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... use. None else too blind for the trail and too feeble for the sortie (with grim humor)—but I can drum. (Solemn ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... had, during our sortie, brought fresh beams, with which, as soon as we were inside, they again barricaded the door. It was not a moment too soon, for another band of Aqualonga's followers had been perceived approaching the house on the southern ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... will be apparent that a force of hostile submarines hemmed in in this way would run a double risk of losing a number of vessels on every occasion on which a sortie was made. This is what actually occurred to the German under-water flotillas in the years 1917-1919, and, in combination with the other methods employed by the Allied navies, was mainly responsible for the failure of the ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... SS. 5, 6 and 10.] Now the rebels have pitched their camp in the midst of thick grass which will easily burn when the wind blows. If we set fire to it at night, they will be thrown into a panic, and we can make a sortie and attack them on all sides at once, thus emulating the achievement of T'ien Tan.' [See p. 90.] That same evening, a strong breeze sprang up; so Huang-fu Sung instructed his soldiers to bind reeds together into torches and mount guard on the city walls, after ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... Sieur Le Blanc alone stood between him and the capture of the town. He has indeed proved himself one of the finest soldiers in France; but, alas! monsieur, the Sieur Le Blanc is no more. He fell not an hour ago at the head of his men, in a brilliant sortie. Remembering your kindness to me, my heart bleeds for you. I write this with the deepest sorrow, but it may be less painful for you to learn of your loss in this way than to be tortured by a rumour, the truth of which you cannot prove. Accept my ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... fairly gurgled with delight at the results of the morning's work, and Mr. Gibney declared that his headache was gone. He and Captain Scraggs had spent the morning seated on deck under an awning, watching the beach for signs of a sortie on the part of the natives of Kandavu to recapture their king. Apparently, however, the destructive fire from the pom-pom gun the night before had so terrified them that the entire population had emigrated to the northern end of the island, leaving the invaders ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... the Avenue de la Grande Armee. It has been concealed to preserve it from the iconoclasts. There has been a lull of late in M. Gambetta's proclamations. Within the last twenty-four hours, not above two fresh ones have appeared. The newspapers are beginning to clamour for a sortie. Why, they ask, are we to allow ourselves to be besieged by an army which does not equal in numbers our own? Why are we to allow them quietly to establish their batteries? There is a certain amount ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... groaned the Mayor, arranging the lace cap on his turban-swirl and shaking out his skirts. "The police are no use. The suffragettes kidnap the good-looking ones. Are you ready for the sortie, Governor?" ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... their foolishness might be duly exposed and confuted. Such a theory is childish. If Jeanne d'Arc ever survived the 30th May, 1431, it was because she escaped from prison and succeeded in hiding herself until safer times. When could she have done this? In a sortie from Compiegne, May 24, 1430, she was thrown from her horse by a Picard archer and taken prisoner by the Bastard of Vendome, who sold her to John of Luxembourg. John kept her in close custody at Beaulieu until August. While there, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... il se pratique en la dance, que l'on ne courbe point le corps, que l'on ne baisse point la teste, qne l'on n'auance point a pas coptez, que l'on ne se choque point les talons l'un contre l'autre en entrant dans l'Eglise, que l'on ne reste point teste nue a la sortie. Si la deuotion n'y oblige, comme lors qu'il est question d'accompagner ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... avant qu'il ait la dimension revee par l'auteur—cette grande figure une et multiple, lugubre et rayonnante, fatale et sacree, l'Homme; voila de quelle pensee, de quelle ambition, si l'on veut, est sortie La ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... Tintagil, who has a fair wife, Ygerne, in another castle. Merlin magically puts on Uther the shape of Ygerne's husband, and as her husband she receives him. On that night Arthur is begotten by Uther, and the Duke of Tintagil, his mother's husband, is slain in a sortie. Uther weds Ygerne; both recognise Arthur as their child. However, by the Celtic custom of fosterage the infant is intrusted to Sir Ector as his dalt, or foster-child, and Uther falls in battle. Arthur is later approven king by the adventure of drawing from the stone the magic ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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 scattered Americans. ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... arms. Near a thousand men, all brave, but without discipline, promptly marched, under General Herkimer,[38] to the relief of Fort Stanwix. Gansevoort was notified, and was to aid the movement by making a sortie from the fort, at the ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... was marked by a gallant exploit on the part of the beleaguered garrison. Not a whisper had transpired of the coming sortie, and a quarter of an hour before the start officers engaged had no idea of it. O si sic omnia! At ten o'clock a band of men slipped out of the town. There were six hundred of them, all irregulars, drawn from the Imperial Light Horse, the Natal Carabineers, and the Border ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 yielded to Mr. ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... It turned the tide against the Lanskaarn. And after that—I guess it was just butchery. I don't know, of course, and the old man hasn't wanted to tell me much; but anyway, the ladders all went down, and the Folk here made a sortie from the gate, down the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... the Boer main army were, however, within an hour's ride of each other, and thus could readily render mutual assistance, unless an attack from the south should be combined with an exactly-timed sortie by the Ladysmith garrison. Yet the Boers had reason to fear this combination against them. The troops under Sir George White were still mobile, and the enterprises against Gun Hill and Surprise Hill, in the second week of December, had shown that both officers and men were keen to be again let ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... 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, with a large supply of buffalo meat and twenty fine young fat colts. This was a great ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... 1914, a detachment of 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 ...
— 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
... daylight began one of the strangest of sieges, between an assailant who knew only that he had to deal with stout walls, and a defender who dared not attempt even a show of a sortie for fear of exposing the weakness of his garrison. The French had ammunition enough to last for a month, and cannon enough to keep two hundred men busy; and ran from one gun to another, keeping up pretences but doing little ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 players may turn upon them at once to drive them back with blows. This is generally ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... to-morrow the little fort at Devil's Drop, built on the edge of the sand where the sea rippled up to the palisades, must fall; and Charles Fort, to the southwest, was hardly in a better case. However, a sortie had been commanded at daybreak as a last effort to relieve Charles Fort, and the two officers on the balcony speculated over their pipes ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... rushed to the windows, and the 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 ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... Neuville on the panorama of Rezonville. In 1884 he exhibited at the Salon the "Evening at Rezonville," a panoramic study, and "The Dream" (1888), now in the Luxemburg. Detaille recorded other events in the military history of his country: the "Sortie of the Garrison of Huningue" (now in the Luxemburg), the "Vincendon Brigade," and "Bizerte," reminiscences of the expedition to Tunis. After a visit to Russia, Detaille exhibited "The Cossacks of the Ataman" and "The Hereditary Grand ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... 'Christ at Emmaus' and the 'Sortie of the Civic Guard,' then Rembrandt had two souls," exclaims ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... arms!" Sir Cuthbert shouted to the archers. "They are going to attempt a sortie." And hastily he retired to the main body of ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... exposed to blistering suns and drenching rains and confined to their trenches through every hour of the night. They had reached the limit of human endurance and were now physically too weak to attempt a sortie. Johnston still sat in his tent writing ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... Belgian Sisters. It is very difficult doing the station work from Dunkirk, as it is 16 kilometres from Adinkerke; but the place itself is nice, and I just have to trust to lifts. I fill my pockets with cigarettes and go to the "sortie de la ville," and just wait for something to pass—and some queer, bumpy rides I get. Still, the soldiers who drive me are delightful, and the cigarettes are always taken ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... of 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 ...
— 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
... a sortie from Fort Meigs on the same day and was drawn into an ambuscade. He was mortally wounded and lost six ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... said the old General; "it iss I who am here to answer for your safety. Now comes Spencer, my Oneida, mit a pelt, who svears to me dot Brant und Butler an ambuscade haff made for me. Vat I do? Eh? I vait for dot sortie? Gewiss!" ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... where each member of the company blandly faces the spectator. Much water had flowed under Burgomaster Six's bridge since Rembrandt painted The Anatomy Lesson. Then he was the obedient student. Now he was an acknowledged master. He painted The Sortie of the Company of Frans Banning Cocq as an artist who was profoundly interested in problems of light and shade, with strong views as to the composition of a picture, not as a methodical and mediocre ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... are also commemorated there. The "Occupation of Ancona," the "Entry of the Army into Belgium," the "Attack of the Citadel of Antwerp," the "Fleet forcing the Tagus," show that nothing is forgotten of the Continental doings. The African feats are almost too many to enumerate. In a "Sortie of the Arab Garrison of Constantine," the Duke de Nemours is made to figure in person. Then we have the Troops of Assault receiving the Signal to leave the Trenches, and "The Scaling of the Breach." There are the "Occupation of the Defile of Teniah," "Combat of the Habrah, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... had changed their minds about the danger of Monckton's guns, though not a shot had yet been fired, and agitated loudly for a sortie across the river. Montcalm thought poorly of the plan; but a miscellaneous force of fifteen hundred Canadians, possessed of more ardor than cohesion, insisted on attempting a night assault. They landed some way up ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... however, that no harm could be done in accepting the news as true and preparing for a Russian attack. The event proved the wisdom of this course. The sortie was made next night. A Russian column of considerable strength advanced some distance along the Woronzoff Road, but finding the English on the ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... 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
... 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 man, with efficient looking eye-glasses and a keen sort of voice, and told him ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... fill a volume with the narrative of this horrid conflict before it was terminated by the death of Amarar. For several months this savage had been blockaded in his stockade by Shiakar's warriors. At length a sortie became indispensable to obtain provisions, but the enemy were too numerous to justify the risk. Upon this, Amarar called his soothsayer, and required him to name a propitious moment for the sally. The oracle retired to his den, and, after suitable incantations, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of damaging various things in the 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 a hinge, and commences to run over the wall of the stair-way. ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... that old memory, and hoped there would be a misunderstanding here, for we dearly wanted to storm the place and burn it. It was powerfully garrisoned by English and Burgundian soldiery, and was expecting reinforcements from Paris. Before night we camped before its gates and made rough work with a sortie ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... entered Compiegne by night. She was girt with the Burgundian sword, found at Lagny, and over her armour she wore a surcoat of cloth of gold.[2003] Such attire would have better beseemed a parade than a sortie; but in the simplicity of her rustic and religious soul she loved all the pompous show ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... burial of the hinder part of the Mole; they twitch and jerk it now in this direction, now in that. Nothing comes of it; the thing refuses to give. A fresh sortie is made by one of them, to find out what is happening overhead. The second strap is perceived, is severed in turn; and henceforth the work goes on as well as could ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... best view possible of the fort, and partly that I might examine the ground upon which the desperate affair of the 14th of April took place. The reader cannot have forgotten, that some hours before daylight on the morning of that day, a vigorous and well-arranged sortie was made by the garrison, and that it was not without hard fighting and a severe loss on both sides that the ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... From that day she would retreat behind the line of duty, conjugal fidelity, honor, and all the other fine sentiments which would need numbering after the fashion of Homer. At the first attack, all this household battalion would make a furious sortie; should I succeed in overthrowing them and take up my quarters in the trenches, there would then be a gathering of the reserve force, and boiling oil or tar would rain upon my head, representing virtue, religion, ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... active man's descending, aided by a rope. The spot, too, was completely concealed from the view of the party which still remained on the rock, near the mill, at a distance of quite half a mile from the gates of the stockade. This fact greatly facilitated the little sortie, since, once in the bed of the rivulet, which was fringed with bushes, it would be very practicable, by following its windings, to gain the forest unseen. The major levelled his glass at the windows, and immediately saw the truth of all that ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... for the life 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 battles and sieges of the Italian ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... best he could, while Campobasso completed the treason that he had plotted with Rene, which had been partially accomplished four days previously, and calmly took up his position on the bridge of Bouxieres on the Meurthe, to make prisoners for the sake of ransom. Then the besieged made a sudden sortie which increased the disorder. The battle proper was of short duration, with little bloodshed, but the pursuit was sanguinary in the extreme, because the Burgundian army had left no ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... 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 ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... officer having neglected his watch, and permitted the Turks to intrench themselves in front of a bastion whereof he had the guard, Count von Starhemberg gave him his choice between the gallows and a sortie wherein he should meet the death of a soldier. The officer chose the latter alternative, and died after performing prodigies ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... allowed the water to fall on my back and breast alternately, rubbing most vigorously with both hands: the allotted time for this aquatic sport is four minutes, but I frequently begged the bademeister to allow me a minute or two more. At my sortie, the bademeister threw over me the dry sheet, and he and his assistants rubbed me dry to the bone, and left me in full scarlet uniform. After this bath I took at least three glasses of water, and a ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... one book about it since, and could draw you a map blindfold and tell you where the counter-batteries stood, and where the lunette which Colborne carried, and how far behind it lay the Convent of San Francisco; where the parallels ran, where the French brought down a howitzer, and where by a sortie they came near to cutting up a division. I could trace you the fausse braye and the main walls, and put my finger on the angle where our guns pierced the greater breach, and carry it across to the tower where, by the lesser breach, our own storming-party ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 of despair, fell upon them with such fury that none of those who ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... presently 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, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... pulled them a few yards, they could not get them away. The little band was falling fast, right out in the open as it was; and at last the overwhelming tide returned and drove them back with the loss of half their numbers. Dr. Kelly, too, must in the sortie have received his mortal wound, for though he struggled back with the rest, he was never again seen alive. Requiescat in pace: physician and soldier, he died a ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... enough, Hood quarrelled with our military officers, with results highly exasperating to our land forces.[263] These last did not shine during the siege. True, in the sortie of 29th November they captured a battery recently erected north of Malbosquet; but, their eagerness exceeding their discipline, they rushed on, despite orders to remain in the battery, like a pack of hounds after a fox (wrote Hood);[264] whereupon the French rushed upon ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... 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
... laurels from the diffident brow of Quicksand. Encircled and criss-crossed with cartridge belts, abundantly garnished with revolvers, and copiously drunk, he poured forth into Quicksand's main street. Too chivalrous to surprise and capture a town by silent sortie, he paused at the nearest corner and emitted his slogan—that fearful, brassy yell, so reminiscent of the steam piano, that had gained for him the classic appellation that had superseded his own baptismal name. Following close upon his vociferation came three shots from his ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... dance 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 ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... was two hundred killed, exclusive of the wounded and prisoners. The royalist loss was never given, but known to be heavy. The Indians lost nearly a hundred warriors among whom were sachems held in great favor. The Americans retained possession of the field owing to the sortie made by the garrison of Fort Schuyler on the camp of St. Leger. On the 22nd St. Leger receiving alarming reports of the advance of General Arnold suddenly decamped from before Fort Schuyler, leaving his baggage behind him. Indians, belonging to the expedition ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... could they gathered into their organizations and made some kind of a camp, sleeping either out of doors, or in convenient houses. A watch was set at Charlestown Neck, and at Roxbury Prescott of Pepperell and his men stood on guard against a sortie. The circuit between these points, comprising the whole sweep of the Charles River and the Back Bay, was likewise occupied. Headquarters were at Cambridge. On the following days men from the more distant towns came in, until before long the minute men and ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... Meanwhile a vigorous British nine-pounder had been turned on another house they occupied. This house was likewise battered in, so that its surviving occupants had to run into the street, where they were well plied with musketry by the regulars and militiamen. The chance for a sortie then seeming favourable, Lieutenant Anderson of the Navy headed his thirty-five merchant mates and skippers in a rush along Sault-au-Matelot Street. But his effort was premature. Morgan shot him dead, and Morgan's Virginians ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... said. "You're my conscience. You hang around the officers' mess, and when we get back from a sortie, you make us pay for the damage we did. But that was ...
— Death of a Spaceman • Walter M. Miller
... soit purifiee de sa consecration aux Divinites infernales. J'aime mieux voir dans cette reserve un scrupule religieux du poete laissant a la morte sa dignite d'Ombre. Alceste a ete nitiee aux profonds mysteres de la mort; elle a vu l'invisible, elle a entendu l'ineffable; toute parole sortie de ses levres serait une divulgation sacrilege. Ce silence mysterieux la spiritualise et la rattache par un dernier lien au ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... two hundred and fifty French, and seven hundred each of Neapolitans and Spanish. They were commanded by General Dundas. Their earliest movements were successful and the commander-in-chief of the besieged came out to see the victory. But the tide turned, the French revolutionists rallied, and the sortie was repulsed. The event was made doubly important by the chance capture of General O'Hara, the English commandant. Such a capture is rare,—Buonaparte was profoundly impressed by the fact. He obtained permission to visit the English general in captivity, but was coldly received. To the question: ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... meaning exiles or fugitives. Their first establishment was at Clissa, near Spalato, under Pietro Crussich, lord of Lupoglavo in Istria. From this place they made raids on the Turks, who at last collected an army and besieged the place for a year. The castellan was killed in a sortie, and the castle surrendered in 1537. They then retired to Segna, where they were received and paid by the Emperor. The original band numbered only five or six hundred, but they had with them many assistants, Dalmatians banished by the Venetians or escaped from the ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... They diminished, gave way, a thin ghostly pattern of the whole, falling back. An Austrian sortie of yellow-brown men ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... after his journey, had also stretched himself on a couch to rest. They were all tired, the entry of the troops having been early in the morning, a fact of which the angry captains of Orleans, who had not shared in that expedition, took advantage to make a secret sortie unknown to the new chiefs. All at once the Maid awoke in agitation and alarm. Her "voices" had awakened her from her sleep. "My council tell me to go against the English," she cried; "but if to assail their towers ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... 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 ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... citation being 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, 800 Sepoy fusileers, and 1,400 Sepoy ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... obscure. The savage sarcasm of Schopenhauer's refusal to discuss monogamy because it had never yet come within the range of practical politics is still justified. I remember once reading an anecdote about a besieged town. The defenders resolved to make a sortie on a certain day, only, in dread of their plan somehow leaking out beyond the gates, or of their womankind dissuading some from the perilous enterprise, they administered a solemn oath to one another that none of them should tell his wife, nor speak of it again even to another man, till the moment ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... 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 ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... He won all hearts by his address, his gentleness, and his affability. But want of circumspection in his gallantries, the objects of which were not always of a rank equal to his own, caused jealousies and discontent among the nobles. His enemies, profiting by a sortie which he made for the purpose of getting a convoy into Naples, delivered up the city to the Spaniards. His repeated efforts to re-enter the place proved futile. After having defended himself like a lion, he was nevertheless carried prisoner to Madrid. The great Conde, who was then serving the ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the troops are quartered there, nor even in this line of villas where we now are. If we were to show a light at night, in any window here, we should have a shell in in a couple of minutes. We have no fear, whatever, of a sortie in this direction; and have plenty ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty |
