g
the fearful wurali into their blood. The blowgun men too were darting
into every opening, handling their clumsy weapons like feathers and
constantly moving to spy out fresh targets.

But the men of Monitaya were by no means escaping unscathed. The Red
Bones, assailed from every quarter and milling about in hopeless
disorder, were fighting now with desperate frenzy. Their own clubbers
and stabbers were charging out and smashing skulls or piercing abdomens,
their arrows rose in all directions at once, and some into whose veins
the wurali had struck sprang in the last moments of life on nearby foes
and bit like mad dogs. With a leader and a chance to form into any sort
of flying wedge they might have broken through with comparative ease and
taken a far heavier toll. But they had no leader: for Umanuh, whose name
meant "corpse," now was a corpse in truth, his merciless brain oozing
from a skull shattered by a Mayoruna clubman; and Schwandorf was very
busy looking out for Schwandorf. So it was every man for himself, with
the devil rapidly taking not only the hindmost, but the foremost as
well.

Thicker and thicker fell the dead. The trenches now not only were filled
to the level of the ground, but piled with a windrow of bullet-torn
bodies knocked down by the ever-spitting rifles. Jose, Pedro, and
Lourenco abandoned all shelter and knelt in plain sight before the door
which they had kept clear of all close attack. Monitaya, until now a
field general who strode up and down roaring commands and encouragement,
suddenly cast away his regal role and, seizing a club from one of his
bodyguard, hurled himself on the nearest Red Bones--a raving, ravening
demon of destructiveness whose glaring eyes smote terror into those
fronting him and whose weapon swung like the club of Hercules. His
bowmen and blowgun men, at last out of missiles, came charging in with
bare hands or weapons seized from fallen warriors. Maneuvering had
ended. Henceforth the fight was a grappling melee.

Then the gunfire dwindled and died. The rifle cartridges were spent.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE PASSING OF SCHWANDORF

The three soldiers flung down their hot, empty guns.

"Nothin' left but the gats and the steel," rumbled Tim. "Me, I'm goin'
out and git some fresh air."

With which he drew pistol and machete, leaped down, and lunged through
the door. McKay bounded at his heels.

"Merry! Rand! Stay here!" he commanded. Then he was outside, his pistol