one wild scream of terror,
and then a retreat, a flight, almost a panic.

Down in the hollow was a babel of sound, men yelping with fright,
officers calming and cursing them, and the shouting of the forces
behind. For Lewis the last moment was approaching. The neck of the
pass was now bare and wide and half of the slope was gone. He had lost
his weapons in the fall, all but his express, and the loosening of the
stone had crushed his foot so that he could scarcely stand. Then order
seemed, to be restored, for another volley rang out, which passed over
his head as he crouched on the ground. The enemy were advancing slowly,
resolutely. He knew that now there was something different in their
tread.

He was calm and quiet. The mad exhilaration was ebbing and he was
calculating chances as dispassionately as a scientist in his study. Two
shots, the six chambers of his pistol, and then he would be ground to
powder. The moon rode over the top of the cleft and a sudden wave of
light fell on the slope, the writhing dead, and below, the advancing
column. It gave him a chance for fair shooting, and he did not miss.
But the men were maddened with anger and taunts, and they would have
charged a battery. They came up on the slope with a fierce rush,
cursing in gutturals. He slipped behind the old friendly jag of rock
and waited till they were abreast. Then began a strange pistol
practice. Crouching in the darkness he selected his men and shot them,
making no mistake. The front ranks of the column turned to the right
and lunged with their bayonets into the gloom. But the man knew his
purpose. He climbed farther back till he was above their heads, looking
down on ranks of white inhuman faces mad with slaughter and the courage
which is next door to fear. They were still advancing, but with an
uncertain air. He saw his chance and took it. Crying out he knew not
what, he leapt among them with clutched rifle, striking madly to right
and left. There was a roar of fright, and for a moment a space was
cleared around him. He fought like a maniac, stumbling with his crushed
foot and leaving two men stunned at his feet. But it was only for a
moment. A bayonet entered his side and his rifle snapped at the stock.
He grappled with the nearest man and pulled him to the ground, for he
could stand no longer. Then there came a wild surge around, a dozen
bayonets pierced him, and in the article of death he was conscious of a
great press which ground him into the earth. The next moment the column
was marching over his body.


Dawn came with light and sweet airs to the dark cleft in the hills.
Just at that moment, when the red east was breaking into spires and
clouds of colour, and the little morning winds were beginning to flutter
among the crags, two men were standing in the throat of the pass. The
ground about them was ploughed up as if by a battery, the rock seamed
and broken, and red stains of blood were on the dry gravel. From the
north, in the direction of the plain, came the confused sound of an army
in camp. But to the south there was a glimpse through an aperture of
hill of a far side of mountain, and on it a gleam as of fire.

Marka, clad in the uniform of a captain of Cossacks, looked fiercely at
his companion and then at the beacon.

"Look," he said, "look and listen!" And sure enough in the morning
stillness came the sound as of a watchword cried from post to post.

"That," said he, "is the morning signal of an awakened empire and the
final proof of our failure."

"It was no fault of mine," said Fazir Khan sourly. "I did as I was
commanded, and lo! when I come I find an army in confusion and the
frontier guarded." The chief spoke with composure, but he had in his
heart an uneasy consciousness that he had had some share in this
undoing.

Marka looked down at a body which lay wrinkled across the path. It was
trodden all but shapeless, the poor face was unrecognizable, the legs
were scrawled like a child's letters. Only one hand with a broken gold
signet-ring remained to tell of the poor inmate of the clay.

The Cossack looked down on the dead with a scowling face. "Curse
him--curse him eternally. Who would have guessed that this fool, this
phrasing fool, would have spoiled our plans? Curse his conscience and
his honour, and God pity him for a fool! I must return to my troops,
for this is no place to linger in." The man saw his work of years
spoiled in a night, and all by the agency of a single adventurer. He
saw his career blighted, his reputation gone. It is not to be wondered
at if he was bitter.

He turned to go, and in leaving pushed the dead man over with his foot.
He saw the hand and the broken ring.

"This thing was once a gentleman," he said, and he went down the pass.

But Fazir Khan remained by the body. He remembered his guest of two
days before, and he cursed himself for underrating this wandering
Englishman. He saw himself in evil case. His chances of spoil and
glory had departed. He foresaw expeditions of reprisal, and the
Bada-Mawidi hunted like partridges upon the mountains. He had staked his
all on a desperate chance, and this one man had been his ruin. For a
moment the barbarian came out, and in a sudden ferocity he kicked the
dead.

But as he looked again he was moved to a juster appreciation.

"This thing was a man," he said.

Then stooping he dipped his finger in blood and touched his forehead.
"This man," he said, "was of the race of kings."