Part 37 (1/2)

CHAPTER XX

ALLAN WEEPS

On they came, slowly and steadily, preceded by a cloud of skirmishers--a thousand or round would allow and carried, each of theed in loops or sockets at the back of the shi+eld When these men were about a hundred yards ae opened fire and killed a great number of them, also some of the marshalled troops behind But this did not stop theainst a horde of brave barbarians who, it see aan to occur, not ain and again we loaded and fired, sweeping away those in front of us, but always others came to take their places Finally at soht skirmishers vanished, except whose ere dead or wounded, taking shelter behind the advancing regiments which noithin fifty yards of us

Then, after a momentary pause another coed in three solid ranks We fired a volley point blank into them and, as it was hopeless for fiftythe tee, as it had been arranged that we should do, at a point of vantage farther down the line of fortifications, whence wefire

Noas that the main body of the White Kendah canall and Hart The enemy scrambled over the first wall, which we had just vacated, to find themselves in a network of other walls held by our speare

Here the fighting was terrible and the loss of the attackers great, for always as they carried one entrenchment they found another a few yards in front of them, out of which the defenders could only be driven at much cost of life

Two hours or more the battle went on thus In spite of the desperate resistance which we offered, the nificently, stor hundreds of dead and wounded to ress Meanwhile I and my riflemen rained bullets on them from certain positions which we had selected beforehand, until at length our aht in the round to our last entrenchate of the temple which, it will be reh the natural lava rock Thrice did the Black Kendah come on and thrice we beat them off, till the ditch in front of the as almost full of fallen As fast as they clih with their long spears, or we shot the such that only a direct frontal attack was possible

In the end they drew back sullenly, having, as we hoped, given up the assault As it turned out, this was not so They were only resting and waiting for the arrival of their reserve It ca or ed like a flood of water We beat theed a second time and we beat the the dead and dying at the base of the wall, which was built of loose stones and earth, where we could not easily get at them because of the showers of spears which were rained at anyone who showed hi out the botto theh which they poured tuht of so vast a nu desperately, ere driven down the tunnel and through the doors that were opened to us, into the first court of the teed to close these doors and block the, for, bringing brushwood and dry grass, they built a fire against theht the thick cedar wood of which they were ether Further retreat seemed impossible, since the second court of the tee, was filled with corn which allowed no rooathered all the women and children, more than two thousand of them Here, or nowhere, we must make our stand and conquer or die Up to this time, compared hich we had inflicted upon the Black Kendah, of whom a couple of thousand or ht, say two hundred killed and as many more wounded Most of such of the latter as could not e hadtheainst the cloister walls, whence they watched us in a grisly ring

This left us about sixteen hundred able-bodied men or many more than we could employ with effect in that narrow place Therefore we deterned in case such an eency as ours should arise About three hundred and fifty of the best men were to remain to defend the temple till all were slain The rest, to the nuh the second court and the gates beyond to the camp of the women and children

These they were to conduct by secret paths that were known to the as many as possible of them on the camels to fly whither they could Our hope was that the victorious Black Kendah would be too exhausted to follow them across the plain to the distant mountains It was a dreadful deternall asked hoarsely

”While the temple stands she must remain in the temple,” replied Hart

”But when all is lost, if I have fallen, do you, White Lord, go to the sanctuary with those who remain and take her and the Ivory Child and flee after the others Only I lay this charge on you under pain of the curse of Heaven, that you do not suffer the Ivory Child to fall into the hands of the Black Kendah First rind it to dust with stones Moreover, I give this coe of it should fail me, that they set flame to the brushwood that is built up with the stacks of corn, so that, after all, those of our enemies who escape , for never did I seethese poor people, the orders given by Hart, who in addition to his office as head priest was a kind of president of as in fact a republic, were put in the way of execution Company by company the h the gateway of the second court, each coateway to salute us who reone Then we, the three hundred and fifty ere left, marshalled ourselves as the Greeks may have done in the Pass of Thermopylae

First stood I andaht rounds per ed across the court in four lines, came the spearmen armed with lances and swords under the iate of the second court so that at the last they ht attempt the rescue of the priestess, were fifty picked ot to say, ounded in two places, though not badly, having received a spear thrust in the left shoulder and a sword cut to the left thigh during his desperate defence of the entrenchment

By the tiiven to drink fro the walls, the h this did not happen for quite half an hour after the eneth beneath the battering of poles, leaving only the ateway after the closing of the doors This the Black Kendah, who had raked out the burning e aith hands and sticks and spears, a task that was made very difficult to them by about a score of our people who stabbed at the lances or dashed the ed off while others took their places, so that at last the gateas practically cleared Then I called back the spearmen who passed into the ranks behind us, andto wait With a rush and a roar a great coateway Just as they began to e fifty Snider bullets tearing into them from a distance of a few yards They fell in a heap; they fell like corn before the scythe, not a h Quickly we reloaded and waited for the next rush In due course it caateway and the tunnel beyond were so choked with fallen e any more It was done under the fire of myself, Hans and a few picked shots--soed, and once e was spent, for never did I see e than was shown by those Black Kendah in the face of terrific loss Thenthe Hart and his coed that awful struggle, since the spot being so narrow, charge as they would, the Black Kendah could not win through the spears of despairing warriors defending their lives and the sanctuary of their God Nor, the encircling cliffs being so sheer, could they get round any other way

At length the ene aside our dead and wounded and drinkWe hoped against hope that they had given up the attack But this was far fro a new plan

Suddenly in the gateway there appeared the huge bulk of the elephant Jana, rushi+ng forward at speed and being urged on by h the defenders as though they were but dry grass, battering those in front of it with its great trunk fro the iron balls that crushed all on who no ht have done to the bites of gnats On it ca, and after it in a flood flowed the Black Kendah, upon who themselves from either side

At the ti with Ragnall at the gate of the second court A little before I had retired exhausted fro, whereon he took es, including the last In this fray he received a further injury, a knock on the head from a stick or stone which stunned him for a few minutes, whereon soround with his back against one of the pillars of the second gate Being told that he was hurt I ran to see as thevery serious, I was hurrying to the front again when I looked up and saw that devil Jana charging straight towardson each side of hi prow of a storh I was never fond of unnecessary risks, I rejoiced at the sight Not even all the exciteed battle had obliterated fro sense of sha this beast with four barrels at forty yards