The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1898-10-20

instantly q cloud OF dark heads and a .
brandisned lightning of swords, and a .
thunder Of savage voices. Mabmud .
smiled when he heard the tale IN pris-
on at HaIfa. and said il was their fay-
orfte stratagem. IL had succeeded. (
Three thousand, if there was one, 70 a
short 800; but it was too late 10 check /
now. Must go through with IL nOwi .
The plumbers Of British cavalry are the
fertile seed of British glory; knee TO
knee the lancers Whirl on. One hun
dred yards-fifty-knee to knee
Slap. 1T was just like that said
a Captain, bringing his fist hard into
his open palm. Through the swords
men they shore without checking
and then come the khor. The Colonel
at their head, riding straight through
everything without sword or revolver
drawn, found his horse on his head,
and the swords swooping about his
own. He got the charger up again,
and rode on straight, unarmed, through
everything. The squadrons followed
him down the fall. Horses plunged,
Numbered, recovered, fell; Dervishes
on the ground lay for the hamstring-
ing cut; officers pistOled them in pas
sing over
And through everything clean out
the other side they came-those that
kept up or got in time. The others
were on the ground-in pieces by now,
| for the cruel swords shore through
shoulder and thigh, and carved the
| dead into fillets. Twentyfour of these,
| and Of those that came out seventy
| four had felt sword or bullet or spear.
Few horses staid behind among the
| swords, but nearly $50 were wounded.
| Lieut.. Robert Grenfell's troops came
on a place with a jump out as we'll as
a jump in; it lost officer, center guide,
and both flank guides, ten killed and
| eleven wounded. Yet, when they burst
struggling out their only thought was
to rally and go in again. Rally, No.
| q" yelled a sergeant, SO mangled
across the face that his body was a
cascade of blood, and nose and cheeks
tapped hideously as he yelled. Fall
out, sergeant, you're wounded said
| the subaltern of his troop. mo, no
sir; fall in!' came the hoarse answer;
and the man reeled in his saddle. Fall
| in No. 2; fall in. Where are the
devils? Show me the devilsi'' And
| No fell in-four whole men out of
thirty.
They chafted and stamped and bias
| phemed to go through them again,
though the Colonel wisely forbade
them to face the pit anew. There were
| gnashings of teeth and bowls of
speechless rage-things half theatrical
half brutal to tell of when blood has
| cooled, yet things to rejoice over, in
| that they show the fighting devil has
not, after all, been civilized out of
| Britons Also there were many and
many deeds of self-abandoning hero
| ism, Of which tale the half will never
| be told. Take only one. Lieut.. de
, MontmOrency missed his troop SER
! geant, and rode back among the SlaShes
to look for him. There he found the
! hacked body of Lieut. GrenfeIl. He dis
mounted and put it upon his horse, not
| seeing in his heat that life had rained
out long since by a dozen channels.
/ The horse bOlted under the Slackened
muscles, and de Montmorency was left
alone with his revolver and 5000
screaming fiends. Capt Kenna and
Corp. Swarbick rode out caught the
! horse. and brought it back; the three
answered the fire of the 5000 at fifty
yards, and got quietly back TO their
own line untouched.
FOrbearing a second charge the Lam
GERS diSmounted and opened fire; the
carbines at short range took an opulent
| vengeance for the lost Back back
back, they drove them, till they came
into the fire of the Thirty-second Bat
terry. Then shrapnel flew shrieking
over them; the 5000 fell all ways and
died
Two minutes silence Then once
more the bowling storm rushed down
upon us; once more crashed forth the
answering tempest. This time it burst
upon Macdonald alone-from the
northwestward upon his right flank,
spreading and gathering to his right
rear. For all their sudden swiftneSs of
movement the Dervishes throughout
this day never lost their formation;
their lines drove on as rigidly as ours,
regiment alongside regiment in lines
at six and eight and a dozen ranks.
| till you might have fancied the Mace
DOMAIN phalanX was alive again. Left
and front and right and rear the
masses ate up the desert-12,00 900 I'M
broken fast and fearless warriors
leaping round 5000.
Now began the fiercest fight of that
| fierce day. The I&halifa brought up his
own black banner again; his stanchest
die-hards drove it into the earth and
locked their ranks about it. The green
flag danced encoura cement to the AL
lah-intoxicated battalions of Wad Helu
and the Shiekh-ed-Din. 1t was victory
or paradise now.
For us it was victory or shredded
| flesh and bones unburied cracking
under the red slippers of Baggara vic
| tors 1t was the very cruX and crisis
of the fight, and the cockpit of the fight
| was Macdonald'S. The British might
avenge his brigade; it was his TO keep
it and to kill off the attack. To meet
it he turned his front through COM
plete half-circle, facing successfully
south, west and north. Every tacti-
elan in the army was delirious in his
praise; the ignorant correspondent was
n man his