s.
The instant answer to that was a regular volley of shots from in
front. The flash of several pistols lit up the tunnel, and
bullets rattled off the walls and roof. The shirt fell, shot
loose from its moorings, and the leading Sikhs gave a shout as
they started to rush forward.

We all surged after them, but there was a sudden check, followed
by a babel worse than when a dozen pi-dogs fight over a rubbish-
heap. You couldn't make head or tail of it, except that
something desperate was happening in front, until suddenly a man
with a knife in his hand, too wild with fear to use it, came
leaping and scrambling over the backs of Sikhs, like a forward
bucking the line. The Sikh in front of me knelt upright and
collared him round the knees. The two went down together, I on
top of both of them with blood running down my arm, for the man
had started to use his knife at last, slashing out at random, and
I rather think that slight cut he gave me saved the Sikh's life.
But you can make any kind of calculation afterwards, about what
took place in absolute darkness, without the least fear of being
proven wrong. And since the Sikh and I agreed on that point no
other opinion matters.

I think that between the two of us we had that man about
nonplused, although we couldn't see. I had his knife, and the
Sikh was kneeling on his stomach, when a hundred and eighty
pounds of bone and muscle catapulted at us from the rear and
sprawled on us headlong, saved by only a miracle from skewering
some one with a bayonet as he fell.

He laughed while he fought, this newcomer, and even asked
questions in the Sikh tongue. He had my arm in a grip like a
vise and wrenched at it until I cursed him. Then he found a leg
in the dark and nearly broke that, only to discover it was the
other Sikh's. Still laughing, as if blindfolded fighting was his
meat and drink, he reached again, and this time his fingers
closed on enemy flesh. Judging by the yells, they hurt, too.

There must have been at least another minute of cat-and-dog-fight
struggling--hands being stepped on and throats clutched--before
Goodenough rolled himself free from an antagonist in front and,
groping for the flashlight, found it and flashed it on. The
first thing I recognized by its light was the face of Narayan
Singh, with wonderful white teeth grinning through his black
beard within six inches of my nose.

"Damn you!" I laughed. "You weigh a ton. Get off--you nearly