A minute later Datto Hakkut's followers discovered that the American fire had ceased. Yelling, the brown men rose and charged like a cyclone.
"Begin firing! Give it to 'em—hot!" shouted the young officer, leading the firing coolly with his revolver.
Again the Moros dropped to earth, though not until they had lost a score of men. For a few moments they lay there, not attempting to keep up much of a fire, for now that they were close to Uncle Sam's regulars, who were firing steadily, it would have been suicide for a brown man to raise his head at all.
"Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta!" The bugler, sticking close to the officer, had to sound the order this time, for the cessation of firing.
"Every man lay his bayonet in front of him, ready to fix!" called Lieutenant Prescott, as the pop-pop-popping began to cease.
That meant cold steel—the final rush in which the regulars must meet several times their own number in deadly hand-to-hand conflict.
CHAPTER XV
IN A CLINCH WITH COLD STEEL
Then came the Moro rush!