So eager and engrossed were the said assailants with slaughter that they seemed hardly to remember his presence. The vibration of whoops and yells was deafening, stunning, in the pearly dawn. But the scenes of butchery and bloodshed oppressed Wagram’s senses no longer. For now he was in the thick of the fight, and every nerve was strained to take care of himself. What if his “followers” ruthlessly slaughtered every living thing that showed?—here was he, with a cloud of spiky-headed fiends driving at him with their broad-headed spears. Down they went, three of them, one after another, for in the heat of battle the coolness of discernment had come upon him, and he was consistently holding his weapon straight and aiming low. Then he whirled round just in time to down a large and nimble cannibal who was within an ace of transfixing him between the shoulders with a broad spear. But still they closed up—and yet, and yet, could not quite. There was a look on this man’s face now which reminded them of him up there, and before it—and his pistol—they at heart quailed.
Still reserving his last fire, knowing he would have no time to reload, he uttered a loud shout, and with axe uplifted he charged forward to cut his way through the opposing horde. It was death—to all appearance; but here again the very hopelessness of it saved the situation, for the moral effect of the terrific appearance of this man of peace forced into action, his tall stature and irresistible Berserk rage, was too much. They gave way before it, before him and the whirling weapon, but—in giving way one more fell.
He had reached his allies now, not before some of them, taking him in the heat of the turmoil for the white renegade, had narrowly missed spearing him. Upon the latter’s quarters was the main attack now directed.
It had been a singularly silent conflict, silent because, except for the few shots he had discharged, the crash of firearms was absent. Of whooping and whistling, of the death shriek, and yelling appeals to the slayers there had been plenty, and now the assailed in a mad rush had fallen back upon the white man’s quarters. There, if anywhere, would safety lie, reasoned the doomed wretches, quite two-thirds of whose numbers had been slain. Upon them, pressing them hard, came their ruthless and avenging foes, encouraged, invigorated by the utter absence of any sign of the terrible white man. And they were now almost upon his house. Could it be that he was away? Already they gloated in imagination upon the rich spoils they would find there. His slaves they would massacre as some sort of revenge for his repeated and ruthless raids upon them, when—what was this?
“Pop-pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop!”
A rapid, knocking sound. Half-a-dozen of their foremost went down. Again that ugly knocking. Down went more. The terror-stricken barbarians halted, dazed. Glaring up at the stockade they could just discern something flash as it moved to and fro, could see a little jet of smoke with each knocking detonation; but what they could not see was the terrible face behind the Maxim as its owner worked his deadly means of defence, grinning in cold and devilish glee. They could not see this, but they could see their own numbers falling like grass before the scythe with every deadly “pop-pop-pop” of this awful unseen power. Their exultation had turned into blind panic now, and with yells of dismay they broke and fled.
He within laughed. Then, not leaving his weapon, he called to his own followers to start in pursuit, and to bring in as many as they could capture alive.
But before this order could be carried out dense volumes of smoke came rolling across the open, together with the roar and crackle of flames. By some means or other the town had been fired; and, indeed, therein lay safety for the panic-stricken runaways. But for the delay thus caused not one would have escaped.
Their flight was now simply headlong, and for anybody but himself not one of them had a thought. As during the fight there had been no system, nothing organised, so now there was no attempt at rally, nobody to give any order. Owing to the same lack of system Wagram had not been able to make his way to the forefront of the attack, and well, indeed, for him that he had not. Now, seeing his “followers” whirl by in a wild, headlong panic, he quickly decided that it was time to go too. He might stand some chance that way, but by remaining here he was doomed. So, taking advantage of the rolling smoke clouds, he, though not without difficulty, at length gained the adjoining forest in the direction taken by his late allies.
But of them there was no sign. He looked around eagerly, wildly almost, but bootlessly. There was no sound save that of the recent turmoil, growing fainter and fainter behind as he continued his flight—no sign of any human presence. He was in an utterly unknown and trackless wilderness—alone.