“Shoot! Shoot!” he kept howling, beside himself; and, tearing open the bandoliers where lay his cartridges, he crammed them with feverish fingers into the girl's weapon and his own--weapons now burning hot with the quick, long-continued firing.
The battle seemed to dance, to waver there before his eyes, in the haze of mist and smoke and stifling air. The dark scene, blue-lit by the guttering torches, grew ever more sanguinary, more incredibly hideous. And still the attackers swarmed along the walls and up them, in front and on both sides, till the swirling mists hid them and the defenders from view.
He heard Beatrice cry out with pain. He saw her stagger and fall back.
To her he leaped.
“Wounded?” he gasped.
She answered nothing, but fell limp.
“God of Battles!” he howled. “Revenge!”
He snatched her automatic from beneath the trampling, crowding feet; he bore her back, away from the thick press. And in the shelter of a massive hut he laid her down.
Then, stark-mad, he turned and leaped into the battle-line that swayed and screamed along the wall.
Critical now the moment. In half a dozen places the besiegers had got their ladders planted. And, while dense masses of the Lanskaarn--unminding fire-balls and boulders rained down upon them--held these ladders firm, up the attackers came with a rush.