He was a man of firm purpose, and yet at the first sight of those howling fiends that purpose faltered, and at the second it was blown to the winds.  He saw a huge coal-black negro seize a shrieking camel-driver and saw at his throat with a knife.  He saw a shock-headed tribesman plunge his great spear through the back of their own little bugler from Mill-street.  He saw a dozen deeds of blood—­the murder of the wounded, the hacking of the unarmed—­and caught, too, in a glance, the good wholesome faces of the faced-about rear rank of the Marines.  The Mallows, too, had faced about, and in an instant Conolly had thrown himself into the heart of C Company, striving with the officers to form the men up with their comrades.

But the mischief had gone too far.  The rank and file had no heart in their work.  They had broken before, and this last rush of murderous savages was a hard thing for broken men to stand against.  They flinched from the furious faces and dripping forearms.  Why should they throw away their lives for a flag for which they cared nothing?  Why should their leader urge them to break, and now shriek to them to re-form?  They would not re-form.  They wanted to get to the sea and to safety.  He flung himself among them with outstretched arms, with words of reason, with shouts, with gaspings.  It was useless; the tide was beyond his control.  They were shredding out into the desert with their faces set for the coast.

“Bhoys, will ye stand for this?” screamed a voice.  It was so ringing, so strenuous, that the breaking Mallows glanced backwards.  They were held by what they saw.  Private Conolly had planted his rifle-stock downwards in a mimosa bush.  From the fixed bayonet there fluttered a little green flag with the crownless harp.  God knows for what black mutiny, for what signal of revolt, that flag had been treasured up within the corporal’s tunic!  Now its green wisp stood amid the rush, while three proud regimental colours were reeling slowly backwards.

“What for the flag?” yelled the private.

“My heart’s blood for it! and mine! and mine!” cried a score of voices.  “God bless it!  The flag, boys—­the flag!”

C Company were rallying upon it.  The stragglers clutched at each other, and pointed.  “Here, McQuire, Flynn, O’Hara,” ran the shoutings.  “Close on the flag!  Back to the flag!” The three standards reeled backwards, and the seething square strove for a clearer space where they could form their shattered ranks; but C Company, grim and powder-stained, choked with enemies and falling fast, still closed in on the little rebel ensign that flapped from the mimosa bush.

It was a good half-hour before the square, having disentangled itself from its difficulties and dressed its ranks, began to slowly move forwards over the ground, across which in its labour and anguish it had been driven.  The long trail of Wessex men and Arabs showed but too clearly the path they had come.