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The war had drifted into its final mechanical phase: the coercion of brute force by brute force of higher potential. It was now mainly a question of putting as many men as possible on horseback to ride down the enemy. Field guns not being needed, the Royal Artillery was formed into a corps of Mounted Rifles.
Matters being thus prepared, they sauntered on; but the jackals were very wary. They came like shadows, so departed a great many times: but at last being re-enforced, they lessened the distance, and got so close, that Ucatella withdrew her head, and bleated faintly inside the wagon. The men turned, levelling their rifles, and found the troop within twenty yards of them.
He and his men sat their camels with a stately pride more than half due to the rifles and bandoliers that had been served out. That black-faced fellow on the little Bishareen did not trouble himself about position in the line as long as we wound through the city streets.
Pedro Diaz consulted an instant with Don Estevan, and then cried loudly "Light the fires everywhere! we must count our enemies." A few minutes after, a red light, almost as bright as the sun, lit up the whole camp, and showed the adventurers at their post, rifles in hand; while the horses stood saddled and bridled, only waiting for their riders in case of a sortie being necessary.
Some of the Kansu soldiers rushed right up to us, and only fell a few feet from our rifles, yelling, "Sha, Sha," kill, kill, to the last moment; and one fellow, as he was beaten down, threw a sword, which stabbed one of our men in the thigh and terribly wounded him.
The bushes did not rise much above their waists, and as the dusky host suddenly beheld the knot of strange-looking men, whose bristling bayonets glistened in the setting sunshine, and whose active rifles were still dealing death among their ranks, they dashed at the hill-top with a yell of mingled rage and surprise.
One of the conditions attaching to my contract is that I deliver the rifles and ammunition into the hands of the rebel officers at at a small town a considerable distance inland from the coast; and as I cannot leave my ship, the duty of conveying the cargo inland would devolve upon you.
All these had been killed in various ways, had been shot with rifles, and stoned with rocks, and made away with, after any fashion that might come most readily to the hands of brutes devoid of light, of mercy, of conscience, and apparently of fear. It must have been a terrible sight to see, for those who had first broken in upon the scene of desolation.
The firing of rifles and cannon, the blowing of horns, the waving of flags, greeted the racers from the shores by day, and great bonfires saluted them by night. At some of the larger towns they would touch for a moment to throw off mail, or to let a passenger leap ashore. Then every nerve of captain, pilot, and crew was on edge with the effort to tie up and get away first.
When I was President, it was my good fortune to repay him in part our debt, which means the debt of the people of the country, by making him a major-general. The regiment assembled at San Antonio. When I reached there, the men, rifles, and horses, which were the essentials, were coming in fast, and the saddles, blankets, and the like were also accumulating.
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