Down in the hollow was a babel of sound, men yelping with fright, officers calming and cursing them, and the shouting of the forces behind.  For Lewis the last moment was approaching.  The neck of the pass was now bare and wide and half of the slope was gone.  He had lost his weapons in the fall, all but his express, and the loosening of the stone had crushed his foot so that he could scarcely stand.  Then order seemed, to be restored, for another volley rang out, which passed over his head as he crouched on the ground.  The enemy were advancing slowly, resolutely.  He knew that now there was something different in their tread.

He was calm and quiet.  The mad exhilaration was ebbing and he was calculating chances as dispassionately as a scientist in his study.  Two shots, the six chambers of his pistol, and then he would be ground to powder.  The moon rode over the top of the cleft and a sudden wave of light fell on the slope, the writhing dead, and below, the advancing column.  It gave him a chance for fair shooting, and he did not miss.  But the men were maddened with anger and taunts, and they would have charged a battery.  They came up on the slope with a fierce rush, cursing in gutturals.  He slipped behind the old friendly jag of rock and waited till they were abreast.  Then began a strange pistol practice.  Crouching in the darkness he selected his men and shot them, making no mistake.  The front ranks of the column turned to the right and lunged with their bayonets into the gloom.  But the man knew his purpose.  He climbed farther back till he was above their heads, looking down on ranks of white inhuman faces mad with slaughter and the courage which is next door to fear.  They were still advancing, but with an uncertain air.  He saw his chance and took it.  Crying out he knew not what, he leapt among them with clutched rifle, striking madly to right and left.  There was a roar of fright, and for a moment a space was cleared around him.  He fought like a maniac, stumbling with his crushed foot and leaving two men stunned at his feet.  But it was only for a moment.  A bayonet entered his side and his rifle snapped at the stock.  He grappled with the nearest man and pulled him to the ground, for he could stand no longer.  Then there came a wild surge around, a dozen bayonets pierced him, and in the article of death he was conscious of a great press which ground him into the earth.  The next moment the column was marching over his body.

Dawn came with light and sweet airs to the dark cleft in the hills.  Just at that moment, when the red east was breaking into spires and clouds of colour, and the little morning winds were beginning to flutter among the crags, two men were standing in the throat of the pass.  The ground about them was ploughed up as if by a battery, the rock seamed and broken, and red stains of blood were on the dry gravel.  From the north, in the direction of the plain, came the confused sound of an army in camp.  But to the south there was a glimpse through an aperture of hill of a far side of mountain, and on it a gleam as of fire.