feet, until only space
enough was left for men to pass in single file. And as the first man
essayed the passage of this perilous path and attempted to work his
precarious way round the perpendicular buttress of rock that formed the
elbow, a spear, wielded by an unseen hand, was observed to dart forward
and bury itself deep in his naked breast, and the next moment he went
hurtling downward off the narrow ledge into the ghastly abyss that
yawned beside him. And as it was with the first man so was it with
those who followed him in the desperate attempt to round that fatal
elbow, until even Mokatto himself, fearless and resolute warrior as he
was, was fain reluctantly to admit that farther progress, by that way at
least, was impossible.

There was nothing for it but to call a halt, and consider what was the
next thing to be done. To advance was impossible; to retreat was
equivalent to an acknowledgment of defeat, which, after the frightful
losses already sustained by the savages, would probably result in them
rising upon their leaders and slaying them in revenge for having
fomented so disastrous a war; while a very brief inspection of their
surroundings sufficed to convince them that nothing without wings could
possibly surmount that vertical rock on the one hand, or descend that
awful precipice on the other. Yet, as they looked, the savage warriors
became aware that somewhere there must be a path to the top of the rock,
for they caught sight first of one, then of another, and then of many
Izreelites peering down upon them from above. Then, suddenly, there
came hurtling down from the summit of the rock, some five hundred feet
above the heads of the savages, a shower of stones, not very big, yet
big enough, falling from that height, to dash a man's brains out, smash
an arm or a leg like a dried twig, or send him reeling off the narrow
pathway to the depths below.

The word was given to retire. There was no other course open to the
invaders, for obviously it was worse than useless to stand huddled
helplessly together upon that narrow pathway and suffer themselves to be
destroyed without the ability to strike a blow in self-defence--and the
retreat down the pass began. Then, with the first rearward movement,
the air, pent in between the rocky walls of that savage gorge, began to
vibrate with a most dreadful outcry of shrieks, shouts, and yells of
dismay and panic; for, as though at some preconcerted signal, a
devasta