y one German now stood upon the embankment of bags and he was the
threatening bomb-thrower. The others were down--gray forms wrestling
with brown. Dixon was lunging at the bomb-thrower, and, reaching him
with the bayonet, ran him through the belly. He toppled over with an
awful cry and fell hard on the other side of the wall of loaded bags.
The bomb exploded. In the streaky burst Dixon seemed to charge in
bulk--to be flung aside like a leaf by a gale.

Little Rogers had engaged an enemy who towered over him. They feinted,
swung, and cracked their guns together, then locked bayonets. Another
German striding from behind stabbed Rogers in the back. He writhed off
the bloody bayonet, falling toward Dorn, showing a white face that
changed as he fell, with quiver of torture and dying eyes.

That dormant inhibited self of Dorn suddenly was no more. Fast as a
flash he was upon the murdering Hun. Bayonet and rifle-barrel lunged
through him, and so terrible was the thrust that the German was thrown
back as if at a blow from a battering-ram. Dorn whirled the bloody
bayonet, and it crashed to the ground the rifle of the other German.
Dorn saw not the visage of the foe--only the thick-set body, and this he
ripped open in one mighty slash. The German's life spilled out horribly.

Dorn leaped over the bloody mass. Owens lay next, wide-eyed, alive, but
stricken. Purcell fought with clubbed rifle, backing away from several
foes. Brewer was being beaten down. Gray forms closing in! Dorn saw
leveled small guns,, flashes of red, the impact of lead striking him.
But he heard no shots. The roar in his ears was the filling of a gulf.
Out of that gulf pierced his laugh. Gray forms--guns--bullets--
bayonets--death--he laughed at them. His moment had come. Here
he would pay. His immense and terrible joy bridged the ages
between the past and this moment when he leaped light and swift,
like a huge cat, upon them. They fired and they hit, but Dorn sprang on,
tigerishly, with his loud and nameless laugh. Bayonets thrust at him
were straws. These enemies gave way, appalled. With sweep and lunge he
killed one and split a second's skull before the first had fallen. A
third he lifted and upset and gored, like a bull, in one single stroke.
The fourth and last of that group, screaming his terror and fury, ran in
close to get beyond that sweeping blade. He fired as he ran. Dorn
tripped him heavily, and he had scarcely struck the ground when that
steel tr