He sank into one of the seats, and stared dully at the floor.
"Quick, you men!" cried Beresford, taking instant grip of the situation. "The rifles! The Chinamen are at us!"
"Have you got our revolvers, Hamid?" asked Mackenzie.
"They are there, sahib. I could not carry----"
"Away with you! Don't stand blethering there! Fetch them, and run like the wind."
The priests were swarming across the garden, jostling one another in the narrow gate, leaping towards the pagoda. Infuriated at the loss of their colleague, just promoted to the higher rank, and at the trick played upon them, they knew that the "foreign devils" no longer had the Eye at their command, and already gloated over their slaughtered bodies. Venting shrill cries of frenzy, they made straight for the entrance, reckless and without order.
But their vision of an orgy of carnage was rudely dispelled. Within the doorway Beresford, Jackson, and Sher Jang stood calmly awaiting them, rifle at shoulder. At twenty paces the rifles flashed; three men fell upon their faces; their comrades reeled back. Another volley crashed into the crowd surging on, and as the survivors staggered, the bark of the revolvers placed by Hamid in the hands of Forrester and Mackenzie mingled with the groans and shrieks of the frantic mob. They turned about, flung away their futile weapons, and fled, a wild rout, through the gate and over the garden towards their dwellings.
"After them!" cried Mackenzie. "No more firing!"
The little garrison stepped out into the open. And there Sher Jang put his fingers to his lips and blew a shrill blast. Instantly the long wall to the left was thick with men, who scrambled over, dropped to the ground, and pursued the panting priests, brandishing the implements of their servitude, and filling the air with fierce triumphant yells. The shikari, at the first sounds of commotion, had collected his fellow slaves and led them to the wall to await his signal.
They swarmed after their oppressors. The passion for freedom throbbed in their veins. The pent-up fury of years of abject captivity burst the fetters that had chained their souls. No hireling valour could withstand them. The priests, their rage become terror, fled like stags before the hounds, across the bridges, through the stream, towards the further gate and their barracks beyond. The huddled mass choked the gate; a few turned at bay; some fell on their knees and prayed for mercy; they had shown no mercy, none they received. The slaves smote and spared not. They forced their way through the gate, hunted the priests to their doors, dashed in after them like terriers into a warren, drove them out at the rear, and chased them pell-mell across the plateau in all directions. And the Old Man still stood like a graven image on his gold-fenced platform aloft.