ate in the faces of their
companions and so secure their own safety; whence a fight among
themselves had sprung up, in course of which many of them very
deservedly were slain, and, most unhappily for us, their frantic efforts
to lower the gate had resulted in thus disabling it.

We had a moment of breathing space before the enemy came up with us, and
in this time Rayburn and Young and I had a grip of each other's hands,
in which, without any words over it, we said good-bye to each other; for
we neither of us for one moment doubted that our last hour had come.
Tizoc stood a little distance from us, as steady and as gallant in his
bearing as ever I saw a man; but that he also counted surely upon dying
there was shown by the glance of grave friendliness that he gave us, and
by his making the gesture that among his people is significant of
farewell. Then we ranged ourselves across the gate-way, holding our
swords in hand firmly, and Rayburn, who had caught up a javelin, stood
with it poised above his shoulder in readiness to discharge it as the
enemy came on. The sight of his splendid figure towering defiantly in
that heroic attitude set my mind to running upon the Homeric legend of
the glorious battling of the Greeks before the gates of Troy, and of
Hector uplifting the rock; and I was very angry with Young, whose
disposition to seize upon the whimsical side of everything was the most
irrepressible that ever I came across, when he exclaimed: "I'll bet you
five dollars, Rayburn, that when you throw that clothes-prop you don't
hit th' man you fire at!"

But Rayburn did hit his man, straight in the heart too, a moment later,
as the enemy with a wild yell charged us; and then, with his back set
well against the wall, he fell to work most gallantly with his sword.

From the very beginning of it we knew that our fighting was utterly
hopeless; for all of our company together did not number fifty men, and
we were confronting there a whole army. Up the street, as far as we
could see, the troops of the enemy were solidly massed; and for every
man whom we struck down twenty were ready to spring forward, fresh and
vigorous, to exhaust still further the strength that rapidly was leaving
us. That we fought on was due not to our valor but to our desperation;
and also--at least such was my own feeling--to a swelling rage that made
us long to kill as many as possible of these savages before we ourselves
died beneath their blows. Death, w