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"Two nights after my arrival in Paris it was my ill-fortune to be embroiled in a rough-and-tumble in the streets, and by an ill-chance I killed a man the first was he of several that I have sent whither I am going to-morrow. The affair was like to have cost me my life, but by another of those miracles which have prolonged it, I was sent instead to the galleys on the Mediterranean.
And so I flourished, and as I waxed he waned, until, calculating my chances with my wife, I was able to prophesy that if no accident or ill-chance occurred to stop me, within another three years I should be the leading practitioner in Dunchester, while Sir John Bell would occupy the second place.
He had sat in a corner, keenly observant but wholly unobtrusive, for the greater part of an hour, till in fact the attention of the great bully now confronting him had by some ill-chance been turned in his direction. The man was three parts drunk, and for some reason, not very comprehensible, he had chosen to resent the presence of this clean-limbed, clean-featured English lad.
We lost sight of him; the smoke dispersed; he was on foot, upright; his horse was killed. "The vicomte was summoned to surrender by the Arabs, but he made them a negative sign with his head, and continued to march towards the palisades. This was a mortal imprudence. Nevertheless the entire army was pleased that he would not retreat, since ill-chance had led him so near.
The ambuscade of the Ant-lion is classic; it does not differ greatly from the others. He excavates a conical pitfall, in which he conceals himself, and seizes the unfortunate ants and other insects whom ill-chance causes to roll into it. See e.g. Tennent, Ceylon, vol. i. p. 252. Also Réaumur, Mémoires pour d'histoire des Insectes, t. i. p. 14, and t. vi. p. 333. The baited ambush.
By a great ill-chance it happened that the sword which I had worn upon that day when I went as Giuliana's escort into Piacenza was still standing in the very corner where I had set it down. Instinctively I sprang for it, and Fifanti, never suspecting my quest until he saw me with a naked iron in my hand, did nothing to prevent my reaching it. Seeing me armed, he laughed. "Ho, ho!
But they would have answered him, he knew, that in such a cause it behoved every man who deemed himself a man to take up arms. They would have pointed out that their own nephew Jeremiah, who was by trade a sailor, the master of a ship which by an ill-chance for that young man had come to anchor at this season in Bridgewater Bay had quitted the helm to snatch up a musket in defence of Right.
No man's stronger and sounder, I am glad to tell you; but if by ill-chance he should die and the title should come to me, then, mother, I'll wear the coronet, and it shall be made of the best gingerbread gilt and ornamented thus.
Cocking his hat more fiercely to make up for this repulse, he next proceeded to patrol the room, scowling from side to side as he went, with the evident intention of picking a quarrel with someone less formidable. By ill-chance his eye lit, as he turned, on our masks.
Lancelot seeth the shield that he had left on the column, and knoweth it well, and saith, "Now know I well that Perceval hath been here, for this shield was he wont to bear, and the like also his father bore." "Ha," saith Messire Gawain, "What ill-chance have I that I may not see the Good Knight!"
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