A yellow face appeared at the top of one of the ladders. Like a flash Ensign Darrin bounded forward, bringing down his sword on the left shoulder of the yellow man.
Then, without a moment’s further thought, Darrin seized the top of the ladder, giving it a mighty push that sent it toppling to the ground below. In a moment he had sent the second ladder, with three men on its rungs, after the first.
Drawing his revolver, and throwing himself across the parapet, Ensign Dave emptied ten shots into a mass of yellow humanity at the foot of the wall. Some of the sailors followed his example.
But now it seemed as though nothing would daunt the desperate, rat-like courage of the Mongols.
All along the four sides of the rampart, light bamboo ladders were set up. Hundreds of yellow assailants rushed up these ladders.
“Prepare to repel boarders!” lustily howled one sailorman, as he sprang forward, clubbing three Chinese in succession over the head.
But it looked as if the American force must be overwhelmed, for with fiendish fury the yellow swarms toiled up and fought at the edge of the parapets.
[CHAPTER IX—THE TRAITOR OF THE YAMEN]
How they ever came through the next fifteen minutes was afterwards a mystery to Dave and Dan.
They were in the thick of that frantic, deadly scramble for possession of the ramparts. As fast as Chinese assailants fell they were instantly replaced by others.