t swelled out on the night with awful pathos.

A glance showed that the rest of the enemy--perhaps ten thousand
strong--were between us and the encircling ditch, and pressing
forward to the assault. Consequently we had them _all!_ and had
them past help. Time for the last act of the tragedy. I fired
the three appointed revolver shots--which meant:

"Turn on the water!"

There was a sudden rush and roar, and in a minute the mountain
brook was raging through the big ditch and creating a river a
hundred feet wide and twenty-five deep.

"Stand to your guns, men! Open fire!"

The thirteen gatlings began to vomit death into the fated ten
thousand. They halted, they stood their ground a moment against
that withering deluge of fire, then they broke, faced about and
swept toward the ditch like chaff before a gale. A full fourth
part of their force never reached the top of the lofty embankment;
the three-fourths reached it and plunged over--to death by drowning.

Within ten short minutes after we had opened fire, armed resistance
was totally annihilated, the campaign was ended, we fifty-four were
masters of England. Twenty-five thousand men lay dead around us.

But how treacherous is fortune! In a little while--say an hour
--happened a thing, by my own fault, which--but I have no heart
to write that. Let the record end here.

CHAPTER XLIV

A POSTSCRIPT BY CLARENCE

I, Clarence, must write it for him. He proposed that we two
go out and see if any help could be accorded the wounded. I was
strenuous against the project. I said that if there were many,
we could do but little for them; and it would not be wise for us to
trust ourselves among them, anyway. But he could seldom be turned
from a purpose once formed; so we shut off the electric current
from the fences, took an escort along, climbed over the enclosing
ramparts of dead knights, and moved out upon the field. The first
wounded mall who appealed for help was sitting with his back
against a dead comrade. When The Boss bent over him and spoke
to him, the man recognized him and stabbed him. That knight was
Sir Meliagraunce, as I found out by tearing off his helmet. He
will not ask for help any more.

We carried The Boss to the cave and gave his wound, which was
not very serious, the best care we could. In this service we had
the help of Merlin, though we did not know it. He was disguised
as a woman, and appeared to be a simple old peasant good