ush of our camels as a brown-paper screen has against a
typhoon. Over they rolled in heaps while the White Kendah spitted them
with their lances.

"The Child is top dog! My money on the Child," reflected I in irreverent
ecstasy. But that exultation was premature, for those Black Kendah were
by no means all dead. Presently I saw that scores of them had appeared
among the camels, which they were engaged in stabbing, or trying
to stab, in the stomach with their spears. Also I had forgotten the
horsemen. As our charge slackened owing to the complication in front,
these arrived on our flanks like two thunderbolts. We faced about and
did our best to meet the onslaught, of which the net result was that
both our left and right lines were pierced through about fifty yards
behind the baggage camels. Luckily for us the very impetuosity of the
Black Kendah rush deprived it of most of the fruits of victory, since
the two squadrons, being unable to check their horses, ended by charging
into each other and becoming mixed in inextricable confusion. Then, I
do not know who gave the order, we wheeled our camels in and fell upon
them, a struggling, stationary mass, with the result that many of them
were speared, or overthrown and trampled.

"I have said we, but that is not quite correct, at any rate so far
as Marut, Hans, I and about fifteen camelmen were concerned. How it
happened I could not tell in that dust and confusion, but we were
cut off from the main body and presently found ourselves fighting
desperately in a group at which Black Kendah horsemen were charging
again and again. We made the best stand we could. By degrees the
bewildered camels sank under the repeated spear-thrusts of the enemy,
all except one, oddly enough that ridden by Hans, which by some strange
chance was never touched. The rest of us were thrown or tumbled off the
camels and continued the fight from behind their struggling bodies."

That is where I came in. Up to this time I had not fired a single shot,
partly because I do not like missing, which it is so easy to do from the
back of a swaying camel, and still more for the reason that I had
not the slightest desire to kill any of these savage men unless I was
obliged to do so in self-defence. Now, however, the thing was different,
as I was fighting for my life. Leaning against my camel, which was dying
and beating its head upon the ground, groaning horribly the while, I
emptied the five cartridges of the repe