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When, therefore, the Romans had got through the pass, they spread out upon the plain beyond it, and were advancing to the camp, when suddenly the secreted troops burst forth from their ambuscade, and, pouring down the mountains, took complete possession of the pass, and attacked the Romans in the rear, while Hannibal attacked them in the van.
The garrisons of both Arcola and Porcil, a neighboring hamlet, were seriously weakened by the detention of this force. Two French divisions were promptly despatched to make use of that advantage, while at the same time an ambuscade was laid among the pollard willows which lined the ditches beyond the retreating Austrians.
The battle was for some time doubtful, but, as usually happens, our men, who stood the enemy's first charge, became superior from this very circumstance that, though suddenly attacked from an ambuscade, they had sustained no loss.
Hours went by, three o'clock struck, and then such dark clouds rolled over the livid sky, that the girl herself became blurred, obscured, as if she were some mere piece of wreckage cast into the darkness. At times she raised her head and watched the sky darken, with eyes that glittered as if to thank it for throwing so dense a gloom over that deserted corner, that spot so fit for an ambuscade.
Leicester had therefore been apprized, at an early moment, of the Prince's intentions, but he was not aware that the convoy would be accompanied by so strong a force as had really been detailed. He had accordingly ordered Sir John Norris, who commanded on the outside of the town near the road which the Spaniards must traverse, to place an ambuscade in his way.
During his temporary absence on this pressing emergency, Captain Antonio Barba, and two other Captains with one hundred grenadiers, and two hundred foot, besides Indians and negroes, advanced from the Spanish camp into the savannah with drums and huzzas, and halted within an hundred paces of the position where the troops left by Oglethorpe lay in ambuscade.
Attacks upon trains were still common, and every variety of sniping appears to have been rife, from the legitimate ambuscade to something little removed from murder.
The process was tedious, the stream being so small, and the chevalier and some of his party, wandering inland, were caught in an ambuscade. He and most of the others were killed, though they defended themselves bravely.
He huddled under a tangle of briars, masking an ambuscade from which his rifle could rake the road and his eyes command it for a hundred yards to its eastern bend, and he had lain there all day. Kenneth Thornton would ride that trail, he felt assured, before dark, and ride it alone, and here, far from his own neighbourhood, he would himself be suspected of no murderous activity.
This surprise would certainly have taken place, and it is not easy to say what might have been the consequence, had not the unexpected appearance of the train of waggons awakened the unbridled rapacity of the Arabs, in spite of their commander's prudence, and attempts to restrain them. In this manner the proposed ambuscade was discovered.
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