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Long before I reached the Gully of the Horsemen I heard the shouts of the British Infantry crying cheeringly: "Hutt, ye beggars! Hutt, ye devils! Get along! Go forward, there!" Then followed the ringing of rifle-butts and shrieks of pain. The troops were banging the bare toes of the mob with their gun-butts for not a bayonet had been fixed.
The circle of gaunt, sallow faces grew friendly, and, as Lorraine stood up, looking questioningly from one to the other, caps were doffed, rifle-butts fell to the ground. "Why, it's Monsieur Tricasse of the Saint-Lys Pompiers!" she said. "Oh, and there is le Père Passerat, and little Émile Brun! Émile, my son, why are you not with your regiment?"
"In the time of the saints," thought the cochero, "surely there were no civil-guards, because one can't live long on blows from rifle-butts." Behind the great old man came the three Magian Kings on ponies that were capering about, especially that of the negro Melchior, which seemed to be about to trample its companions.
Below in the garden the Bavarians were running around the house, hammering with rifle-butts at the closed shutters, crouching, dodging from stable to garden, perfectly possessed to get into the house. Their officers bellowed orders and shook their sabres in the very teeth of the rifle blast; the cavalry capered and galloped, and flew from thicket to thicket.
A great hullaballoo broke out, and almost immediately the soldiers appeared, driving the seven villagers before them with their rifle-butts.
A moment later the troopers mounted and cantered off down the hill, veering wide to skirt the head of a column of infantry marching in; and when the Special Messenger started to return she found masses of men threatening to separate her from her prisoner sunburnt, sweating, dirty-faced men, clutching their rifle-butts with red hands.
We beat some of them over the head with our rifle-butts and kicked them savagely in a fever of anxiety to put some spirit in them, but nothing could move them forward. It must be always so; the Christian Chinaman face to face with his fierce, heathen countrymen is as a lamb; he cannot fight.
Long before I reached the Gully of the Horsemen I heard the shouts of the British Infantry crying cheeringly: 'Hutt, ye beggars! Hutt, ye devils! Get along! Go forward, there! Then followed the ringing of rifle-butts and shrieks of pain. The troops were banging the bare toes of the mob with their gun-butts for not a bayonet had been fixed.
All that day they watched the Swiss soldiers searching Mount Terrible; saw a red fox steal from the lower thickets and bolt between the legs of the beaters who swung their rifle-butts at the streak of ruddy fur; saw little mountain birds scatter into flight, so closely and minutely the soldiers searched; saw even a big auerhahn burst into thunderous flight from the ferns to a pine and from the pine out across the terrific depths of space below the white shoulder of Thusis.
There was flags an' banners wavin' high, an' dhress and shtyle were shown, But the best av all the company was Misther John Malone. John Malone. There had been a royal dog-fight in the ravine at the back of the rifle-butts, between Learoyd's Jock and Ortheris's Blue Rot both mongrel Rampur hounds, chiefly ribs and teeth.
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