advancing regiments which now were
within fifty yards of us.

Then, after a momentary pause another command was shouted out and the
first regiment charged in three solid ranks. We fired a volley point
blank into them and, as it was hopeless for fifty men to withstand such
an onslaught, bolted during the temporary confusion that ensued, taking
refuge, as it had been arranged that we should do, at a point of vantage
farther down the line of fortifications, whence we maintained our
galling fire.

Now it was that the main body of the White Kendah came into action under
the leadership of Ragnall and Harut. The enemy scrambled over the first
wall, which we had just vacated, to find themselves in a network of
other walls held by our spearmen in a narrow place where numbers gave no
great advantage.

Here the fighting was terrible and the loss of the attackers great, for
always as they carried one entrenchment they found another a few yards
in front of them, out of which the defenders could only be driven at
much cost of life.

Two hours or more the battle went on thus. In spite of the desperate
resistance which we offered, the multitude of the Black Kendah, who I
must say fought magnificently, stormed wall after wall, leaving hundreds
of dead and wounded to mark their difficult progress. Meanwhile I and
my riflemen rained bullets on them from certain positions which we had
selected beforehand, until at length our ammunition began to run low.

At half-past eight in the morning we were driven back over the open
ground to our last entrenchment, a very strong one just outside of the
eastern gate of the temple which, it will be remembered, was set in
a tunnel pierced through the natural lava rock. Thrice did the Black
Kendah come on and thrice we beat them off, till the ditch in front of
the wall was almost full of fallen. As fast as they climbed to the top
of it the White Kendah thrust them through with their long spears, or we
shot them with our rifles, the nature of the ground being such that only
a direct frontal attack was possible.

In the end they drew back sullenly, having, as we hoped, given up the
assault. As it turned out, this was not so. They were only resting
and waiting for the arrival of their reserve. It came up shouting and
singing a war-song, two thousand strong or more, and presently once more
they charged like a flood of water. We beat them back. They reformed and
charged a second time and we beat them ba