One or two of the dead men do not seem to have had enough, or else are dissatisfied with the manner of their taking off. At any rate, they stagger to their feet, and have to be put to sleep again by energetic means.
Philander comes near making a mess of it all by his enthusiasm. It is a regular picnic to the small professor.
In the beginning he aimed his gun at one of the brigands. The weapon is strange to him, being a long Arabian affair, with a peculiar stock, but Philander has some knowledge of weapons, shuts his eyes, and pulls the trigger.
The report staggers him. When he opens his eyes, and sees the big, ragged Kabyle at whom he aimed lying flat on his back, with arms extended, the professor is horrified at first.
Then some of the warlike spirit that distinguished his ancestors at Lexington begins to flame up within him.
He gives a shrill war-cry that would doubtless please many a Greek scholar, and plunges headlong for the foe.
The way in which he swings that Arab gun is a sight to behold; in itself the apparition of Professor Sharpe thus advancing to the fray is enough to strike terror to the human heart.
One poor devil is in a position to receive a tremendous whack on the back with the gun, now used as a cudgel, and there is positively no fraud about the manner of his sprawling around.
After that the professor sweeps the air in vain with his weapon. Men who have met the terrors of the Algerian desert for years, fall down and expire before he can hasten their exit from this vale of tears.
Really, it is wonderful—he never before knew the tenets of the Mohammedan religion made its devotees so accommodating; they seem to court dissolution in the longing for paradise, where the prophet promises eternal happiness for all who die in battle.