Holly, I tell thee they are about _to murder him!_"
Then she cried aloud, "Fear nothing, Captains. Ye are but few, yet with
you goes the strength of ten thousand thousand. Now follow the Hesea,
and whate'er ye meet, be not dismayed. Repeat it to the soldiers, that
fearing nothing they follow the Hesea through yonder host and across the
bridge and into the city of Kaloon."
So the chiefs rode hither and thither, crying out her words, and the
savage tribesmen answered--"Aye, we who followed through the water, will
follow across the plain. Onward, Hes, for darkness swallows us."
Now some orders were given, and the companies fell into a formation that
resembled a great wedge, Ayesha herself being its very point and apex,
for though Oros and I rode on either side of her, spur as we would, our
horses' heads never passed her saddle bow. In front of that dark mass
she shone a single spot of white--one snowy feather on a black torrent's
breast.
A screaming bugle note--and, like giant arms, from the shelter of some
groves of poplar trees, curved horns of cavalry shot out to surround
us, while the broad bosom of the opposing army, shimmering with spears,
rolled forward as a wave rolls crowned with sunlit foam, and behind it,
line upon line, uncountable, lay a surging sea of men.
Our end was near. We were lost, or so it seemed.
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