But the men of Monitaya were by no means escaping unscathed. The Red Bones, assailed from every quarter and milling about in hopeless disorder, were fighting now with desperate frenzy. Their own clubbers and stabbers were charging out and smashing skulls or piercing abdomens, their arrows rose in all directions at once, and some into whose veins the wurali had struck sprang in the last moments of life on nearby foes and bit like mad dogs. With a leader and a chance to form into any sort of flying wedge they might have broken through with comparative ease and taken a far heavier toll. But they had no leader: for Umanuh, whose name meant "corpse," now was a corpse in truth, his merciless brain oozing from a skull shattered by a Mayoruna clubman; and Schwandorf was very busy looking out for Schwandorf. So it was every man for himself, with the devil rapidly taking not only the hindmost, but the foremost as well.
Thicker and thicker fell the dead. The trenches now not only were filled to the level of the ground, but piled with a windrow of bullet-torn bodies knocked down by the ever-spitting rifles. José, Pedro, and Lourenço abandoned all shelter and knelt in plain sight before the door which they had kept clear of all close attack. Monitaya, until now a field general who strode up and down roaring commands and encouragement, suddenly cast away his regal role and, seizing a club from one of his bodyguard, hurled himself on the nearest Red Bones—a raving, ravening demon of destructiveness whose glaring eyes smote terror into those fronting him and whose weapon swung like the club of Hercules. His bowmen and blowgun men, at last out of missiles, came charging in with bare hands or weapons seized from fallen warriors. Maneuvering had ended. Henceforth the fight was a grappling mêlée.
Then the gunfire dwindled and died. The rifle cartridges were spent.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE PASSING OF SCHWANDORF
The three soldiers flung down their hot, empty guns.
"Nothin' left but the gats and the steel," rumbled Tim. "Me, I'm goin' out and git some fresh air."
With which he drew pistol and machete, leaped down, and lunged through the door. McKay bounded at his heels.
"Merry! Rand! Stay here!" he commanded. Then he was outside, his pistol roaring in unison with Tim's.