Unless the Union troops succeeded in surprising the Rebels, the fight, Palmer knew, would be desperate; the position they held was almost impregnable, camped behind a steep gash in the mountain: a handful of men could hold it against Dunning's whole brigade, unshielded, bare.

in danger &c n.; endangered &c v.; fraught with danger; dangerous, hazardous, perilous, parlous, periculous^; unsafe, unprotected &c (safe, protect) &c 664; insecure. untrustworthy; built upon.sand, on a sandy basis; wildcat. defenseless, fenceless, guardless^, harborless; unshielded; vulnerable, expugnable^, exposed; open to &c (liable) 177.

These were days when, if the Huguenot was not absolutely forbidden in France, he was at least looked upon as a man who existed upon sufferance, and who was unshielded by the laws which protected his Catholic fellow-subjects.

"Guard his unshielded breast from treachery!"