Somehow, probably by Tanno's orders, perhaps by their own instincts, the
reliefs with the other poles handed them to Hirnio and me as we
dismounted. Three of the clever blacks caught our horses and Murmex's.
Others detached the poles from the litter and the four biggest bearers
seized them and used them vigorously.

Thus, actually quicker than it takes to tell of it, eight powerful,
skillful and justly incensed men on our side were plying litter poles
against the cudgels of our attackers.

I was severely bruised before I warmed up to my work; when I did warm up I
laid a man flat with every blow of the pole I wielded.

When my adversaries had had a sufficient taste of my skill to cause them
to draw away from me, as far as they could in that press of men, horses
and mules, and I had cleared a space around me, I looked about.

Agathemer, light built as he was, had wrenched a bludgeon from some Vedian
and was wielding it not ineffectually.

Hirnio was doing his part in the fighting like a gentleman and an expert.

But Murmex and Tanno chiefly caught my eye.

It was wonderful to see Tanno fight. Every swing of his pole cracked on a
skull. Men fell about him by twos and threes, one on the other.

If Tanno was wonderful Murmex was marvellous. Never had I seen a man
handle a staff so rapidly and effectively.

By this time my nine tenants were afoot, and uncloaked. Now a Sabine
farmer, afoot or horsed, is never without his trusty staff of yew or holly
or thorn. These the nine used to admiration, if less miraculously than
Tanno and Murmex.

Since there were now a round dozen skilled fencers plying their staffs on
our side, and four huge and mighty Nubians doing their best (with no mean
skill of their own, either) to assist us, we soon were on the way to
victory.

The remnant of our adversaries still on their feet fled; fled up the
alleys between the houses, into the houses, down the bank towards the
stream or into the stream, over the barricade of the twin logs.

That barricade made it impossible for us to go on. The number of men laid
low, some of whom were reviving from their stunned condition and crawling
or staggering away from under the hoofs of the crazed horses and mules,
made it unthinkable that any explanation of the mistake which had led to
the fracas could be possible, or if possible, that explanation could
quench the fires of animosity which blazed in the breasts of all
concerned.

With one accord,