tening, a horse within neighed.

"The stables!" I whispered, and, a moment later, had pushed back a door
and entered. From the city about us we could hear the din of great
commotion, and quite close the sounds of battle--the crack of thousands
of rifles, the yells of the soldiers, the hoarse commands of officers,
and the blare of bugles.

The bombardment had ceased as suddenly as it had commenced. I judged
that the enemy was storming the city, for the sounds we heard were the
sounds of hand-to-hand combat.

Within the stables I groped about until I had found saddles and bridles
for two horses. But afterward, in the darkness, I could find but a
single mount. The doors of the opposite side, leading to the street,
were open, and we could see great multitudes of men, women, and
children fleeing toward the west. Soldiers, afoot and mounted, were
joining the mad exodus. Now and then a camel or an elephant would pass
bearing some officer or dignitary to safety. It was evident that the
city would fall at any moment--a fact which was amply proclaimed by the
terror-stricken haste of the fear-mad mob.

Horse, camel, and elephant trod helpless women and children beneath
their feet. A common soldier dragged a general from his mount, and,
leaping to the animal's back, fled down the packed street toward the
west. A woman seized a gun and brained a court dignitary, whose horse
had trampled her child to death. Shrieks, curses, commands,
supplications filled the air. It was a frightful scene--one that will
be burned upon my memory forever.

I had saddled and bridled the single horse which had evidently been
overlooked by the royal household in its flight, and, standing a little
back in the shadow of the stable's interior, Victory and I watched the
surging throng without.

To have entered it would have been to have courted greater danger than
we were already in. We decided to wait until the stress of blacks
thinned, and for more than an hour we stood there while the sounds of
battle raged upon the eastern side of the city and the population flew
toward the west. More and more numerous became the uniformed soldiers
among the fleeing throng, until, toward the last, the street was packed
with them. It was no orderly retreat, but a rout, complete and
terrible.

The fighting was steadily approaching us now, until the crack of rifles
sounded in the very street upon which we were looking. And then came a
handful of brave