d at man and horse
like a night of arrows. They put their hot spurs into flank and
face and neck. I saw them strike and fall; they do hit hard, those
big-winged _Vespae_. It was terrible, the swift charge of that
winged battalion of the air. I heard howls of pain below me, and
the thunder of rushing feet. The horses were rearing and plunging,
the men striking with their hats.

I heard D'ri shouting and laughing at his window.

"Give 'em hell, ye little blue devils!" he yelled; and there was
all evidence that they understood him.

Then, again, every man of us opened his window and fired a volley
at the scurrying mass.

One horse, rearing and leaping on his hind legs, came down across
the back of another, and the two fell heavily in a rolling,
convulsive heap. One, as if blinded, bumped a tree, going over on
his withers, all fours flashing in the air. Some tore off in the
thickets, as unmanageable as the wild moose. More than half threw
their riders. Not a man of them pulled a trigger: they were busy
enough, God knows. Not one of them could have hit the sky with any
certainty. I never saw such a torrent of horsehair and red caps.

"Whut! Been on the back o' one o' 'em hosses?" said D'ri, telling
of it a long time after. "'D ruther o' been shet up 'n a barrel
with a lot o' cats 'n' rolled downhill. Good deal better fer my
health, an' I 'd 'a' luked more like a human bein' when I come out.
Them fellers--they did n't luk fit t' 'sociate with nuthin' er
nobody when we led 'em up t' the house--nut one on 'em."

Only one Britisher was brought down by our bullets, and he had been
the mark of D'ri: with him a rifle was never a plaything. Five
others lay writhing in the grass, bereft of horse, deserted by
their comrades. The smudges were ready, and the nets. D'ri and I
put on the latter and ran out, placing a smudge row on every side
of the Hermitage. The winged fighters were quickly driven away.
Of the helpless enemy one had staggered off in the brush; the
others lay groaning, their faces lumpy and one-sided. A big
sergeant had a nose of the look and diameter of a goose-egg; one
carried a cheek as large and protuberant as the jowl of a porker's
head; and one had ears that stuck out like a puffed bladder. They
were helpless. We disarmed them and brought them in, doing all we
could for their comfort with blue clay and bruised plantain. It
was hard on them, I have often thought, but it saved an ugly fi