and his staff had halted almost within shouting
distance, and protected from the enemy's fire only by a little clump
of trees. Then Brand knew that there was method in this silence.

A long, clarion-like bugle-call, and then--a sudden upheaval of all
the forces of destruction. From the heights above the pom-poms and
Maxims sent down a murderous rain, the trenches from end to end
belched forth red fire. Brand held his breath, it was an epoch--for a
looker-on a marvellous experience--a page in the chapter of his life.
The firing-line of the Turks was within four hundred yards of the
trenches, and in thirty seconds they were wiped out of existence. The
next line and the next shared the same fate. The Turkish officers
galloped to the front with drawn sabres, the Mohammedan battle-cry,
solemn and inspiring, rang fiercely out. It was useless. No living
thing could face that zone of destruction. A dust rose from the
bullet-riven ground. It was like a hail-storm upon an ocean. The Turks
wavered and broke, and the Thetian cavalry rode them through and
through, passing out of their broken ranks with blood-stained sabres
and hearts aflame.

Ughtred, watching, saw the first signs of danger, and signalled for
their withdrawal. But the lust of blood was awake in them, and they
were drunk with the joy of fighting. They followed and followed till
the Turks, out of that awful avalanche of death, became conscious that
a thousand Thetian horsemen were not an invincible force. Their fight
was checked, they were almost immediately surrounded, their leader
fell shot through the heart, and a miracle was required to save the
flower of the Thetian army.

A miracle which happened. For of a sudden a horseman, who had ridden
in the ranks, his face shaded by a helmet, leaped to the front.

"A Reist! A Reist!" he cried, "for God and Theos," and once more the
fear of numbers passed away. They fought like heroes, and in the melee
without serious loss. They fought their way almost to the open, and
their path was an avenue of blood. But how it might have gone with
them no man could tell, for at the critical moment the whole cavalry
reserve, with Ughtred himself at their head, fell upon the enemy's
right flank, and the triumph of the day was assured. The Turks fled,
and no further pursuit was attempted.

The man who had led that wonderful rally rode slowly back to his place
in the ranks. But Ughtred, from whose left temple the blood was
streaming,