During the final assault he was equally conspicuous; he was here, there, and everywhere, and his voice and appearance, even for a moment, among them never failed to cause his men to redouble their efforts.
It was not, however, until far on into the night that this last and awful charge was made.
The savage foe advanced with a wild shout all along the line of rampart that connected the Moncrieff main estancia with our villa. This was really our weakest part.
The assault was made on horseback. We heard them coming thundering on some time before we saw them and could fire. They seemed mad, furious; their tall feather-bedecked spears were waved high in air; they sat like huge baboons on their high saddles, and their very horses had been imbued with the recklessness of their riders, and came on bounding and flying over our frail field of spikes. It was to be all spear work till they came to close quarters; then they would use their deadly knives.
Hardly had the first sound of the horses' hoofs reached our ears ere one, two, three rockets left Coila Villa; and scarcely had they exploded in the air and cast their golden showers of sparks abroad, before the roar of an explosion was heard high up on the braeland that shook the houses to their very foundations—and then—there is the awful rush of foaming, seething water.
Nothing could withstand that unexpected flood; men and horses were floated and washed away, struggling and helpless, before it.