He stumbled over an inert body; would have fallen had not the Australian caught him. A tall soldier who lunged toward them with a dripping bayonet was shot by MacKail.... There were no means here of distinguishing the parties to this savage struggle, but in the inner corridor it was lighter. Near at hand two of the republicans—queues cut off, dressed in an indistinguishable but odd-appearing uniform of some light gray stuff with a white cloth tied about the left arm, had heaped bodies across the corridor and were shooting over them at a darker mass just forward of the engine room.
Doane shouted at the republicans, ordering them to withdraw. They shook their heads angrily. One, even as he tried to reply, sank into a limp heap with a dark stream trickling from a hole in his forehead. His comrade bent low to reload his rifle. With the shouting of many hoarse voices the dark mass up forward came charging down the corridor. Doane was firing into them when MacKail and the Australian caught his arm and drew him back through the doorway. From that position, however, all three could shoot the blue-clad attackers as they plunged by the opening. Then, however, they had to defend themselves. The soldiers came on by dozens. Doane had his second clip of cartridges in his pistol.
“Get back!” he shouted to the others. “Guard the steps—they'll be coming up for loot!”
They retreated. Two bodies lay huddled on the steps they had left but a few moments earlier. A few dead women were on the deck and one or two men.
Even as they stepped over the bodies and mounted to the deck above, all three men, their faculties sharpened to a supernatural degree by the ugly thrill of combat, took in the details of what was evidently accepted among these republican rebels as their uniform—a suit of unmistakably American woolen underwear, the drawers supported by bright-colored American suspenders; socks worn outside (like the suspenders) with garters that bore the trademark name of an American city, and finally, American shoes. So the enthusiasm of these young revolutionists for the greatest of republics found expression! And across the breast of each, lettered on a strip of white cloth, was the inscription that Sun Shi-pi had so glibly translated as “Dare to Die.” Sun must have brought along these supposedly Western uniforms in his pedler's trunks.
It was never to be known what surprising incidents had preceded this sudden slaughter. The chief engineer might have told, but his mutilated body Doane found, on his second attempt to get through, lying just across the sill of the engine room, as if he had been stepping out to reason with them.
The entire battle lasted barely half an hour. It was, for the white folk, a period of confusion and terror. Toward the end, the blue men, utter outlaws now, made rush after rush up the various stairways and ladders, only to be fought back at every point by the white men and the few surviving officers of his excellency's force. They were like the most primitive savages, knowing neither fear nor reason. The blood-lust that at times captures the spirit of this normally phlegmatic and reasonable people drove them for the time to the point of madness.
At last, however, they drew off below. Two of the boats were within their reach. These they lowered, and despite the speed of steamer and current, though not without evident loss of life, they got them over, tumbled into them, and fell away into the night astern. Then for the first and last time this night Doane saw the redoubtable Tom Sung. He stood in the nearer boat, brandishing a rifle and screeching wild phrases in Chinese.
MacKail took the engine room. Captain Benjamin, still, grimly, pistol in hand, held the pilot to his task. There was no crew to clean the shambles below decks, yet with the few loyal soldiers who had managed to hide away now at the furnaces, the steamer wound her way steadily up-stream.
Doane found what had once been the earnest Sun Shi-pi in the starboard corridor, below. On his body were the uniform, white brassard and motto of the “Dare to Dies.” They had beheaded him.