m it.

The Chinaman is no coward when once aroused. Death he faces as he faces
life, stoically, imperturbably. The coolies, reaching for the nearest
weapons, followed the man who showed the Dragon's blood. Many of them
understood the use of arms, having borne them for New China. Death was
upon them, and they went to meet it with death in their hands.

Kan Wong dragged up an uninjured machine gun the crew of which lay about
it. Fitting the bands of cartridges as he had seen the gunners do, he
turned the crank and swung it round on its revolving tripod. Before its
vicious rain he saw the grey figures fall, and a great joy welled up in
his breast. He signalled for other belts and worked the gun faster.
Round him the coolies rallied; others beyond the sound of his voice
joined in from pure instinct. The grey figures wavered, hesitated,
melted back into the smoke, and then strove to work around the fire of
the death-spitting group. But the Dragon's blood was up, the voice of
the Dragon's son cheered and directed the snarling, roused whelps to
whom war was an old, old trade, forgotten, and now remembered in this
strange, wild land. The joy of slaughter came savagely upon them. The
death that they had received they now gave back. In the place the white
men had fled, the yellow men now stood, descendants of the Tai-pings, as
fierce and wild as their once Hairy brothers.

Meanwhile, behind them the retreating line halted, stiffened by hurried
reinforcements. The officers rallied their men, paused and looked back
through the smoke. The line had given way and they must meet the
oncoming wave. Quickly reforming, they picked their ground for a stand
and waited. The moments passed, but no sign of the victors.

"What the hell is up?" snarled one of the reinforcing officers. "I
thought the line had given way."

"It has," replied the panting, battle-torn commander. "My men are all
back here; there's no one in front but the enemy!"

"What's that ahead, then?" The sharp bark of rifles, the _rat-a-tat_ of
machine guns, the boom of bursting grenades, and the yells, groans,
screams and shouts of the hand-to-hand conflict came through the
curtaining smoke in a mad jumble of savage sound.

"Damned if I know! We'd better find out!" They began moving their now
rallied men back into it.

Suddenly they came upon it--a writhing mass of jeans-clad coolies,
wild-eyed, their teeth bared in devilish, savage grins, their hands busy
with the imp