Chinamen fell all around them, but still they came on.
"Take a shot yourself, Williams," Cummins ordered. (Williams was a noted rifle shot.)
He seized a rifle, rested it on a sand-bag, took careful aim and fired, loaded, and fired again.
The second European twisted round and fell. As he fell his hat came off, and Glover recognized, with a funny feeling of regret, that it was Hopkins. The Chinese following him stopped, came on again, looked back, half a dozen threw up their arms and fell, and then the others had had enough of it, could face no more, and, throwing their rifles away, ran down the hill to the right. The black-bearded man, with fifty or sixty Chinamen still behind him, got to within fifty yards. The marines began to cheer, standing up now to fire.
They dwindled to forty, to thirty, and then with a sudden shock Glover realized that they were actually up to them, and woke to the fact that men were fighting hand to hand, marines clubbing their rifles and smiting left and right (they were still outnumbered three to one), and that the Commander was standing in front of him coolly firing his revolver.
He suddenly remembered that he had a revolver too, and drew it, but Cummins seized it and handed him his empty smoking one to reload.
A cheer on the right, and Pattison and his men threw themselves into the fray; another cheer, and the mighty Saunderson with half of his Red Marines came charging over; more revolver shots rang out, the Chinese began to give way, turned tail, and rushed down the slope, the huge bearded European last of all.
As he bounded back he passed Hopkins's prostrate body, bent down, lifted him up, and staggered away with him.
"Let him go, men; don't fire at him," shouted Cummins, and he disappeared into the bushes.
Glover heard the Commander mutter, "What a silly fool I am!"