Meanwhile Lewis was something wholly unlike himself, a maddened creature
with every sense on the alert, drinking in the glory of the fight. He
husbanded the chances of his life with generous parsimony. Every chance
meant some minutes' delay and every delay a new link of safety for the
north. His cartridges were getting near an end, but there still
remained the stones and his pistol and the power of his arm hand to
hand.
Suddenly came a second volley which all but killed him, bullets glancing
on all sides of him and scraping the rocks with a horrid message of
death. Then on the heels of it came a charge up the slope. The turn
had come for the last expedient. He rushed to the stone and with the
strength of madness rooted it from its foundations. It wavered for a
second, and then with a cloud of earth and gravel it plunged downwards.
A second and it had ploughed its way with a sickening grinding sound
into the ranks of the men below. There was one wild scream of terror,
and then a retreat, a flight, almost a panic.
Down in the hollow was a babel of sound, men yelping with fright,
officers calming and cursing them, and the shouting of the forces
behind. For Lewis the last moment was approaching. The neck of the
pass was now bare and wide and half of the slope was gone. He had lost
his weapons in the fall, all but his express, and the loosening of the
stone had crushed his foot so that he could scarcely stand.
Pages:
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365