Sentence:  So they had to search the world again for a sphinx. And still there was none. But they were not men that it is easy to <WSD>baffle</WSD>, and at last they found a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To foil; to thwart. (from 17th c.)