“Here goes Armenia’s last chance!” I thought; and I waited to see the beginning of the end before limping back to Monty.

And it was well I did wait.  I had actually forgotten Rustum Khan and his two squadrons.  Nor would I ever have believed without seeing it that one lone man could so inspirit and control that number of aliens whom he had only as much as drilled a time or two.  It said as much for the Zeitoonli as for Rustum Khan.  Without the very ultimate of bravery, good faith, and intelligence on their part he could never have come near attempting what he did.

He brought his two squadrons in line together suddenly over the brow of the ramp, galloped them forward between Fred’s extended riflemen, and charged down-hill, the horses checking as they felt the slippery clay under foot and then, unable to pull up, careering head-long, urged by their riders into madder and madder speed, with Rustum Khan on his beautiful bay mare several lengths in the lead.

Cavalry usually starts at a walk, then trots, and only gains its great momentum within a few yards of the enemy.  This cavalry started at top speed, and never lost it until it buried itself into the advancing Turks as an avalanche bursts into a forest!  No human enemy could ever have withstood that charge.  Many of the horses fell in the first fifty yards, and none of these were able to regain their feet in time to be of use.  Some of the riders were rolled on and killed.  And some were slain by the half-dozen volleys the astonished Turks found time to greet them with.  But more than two-thirds of Rustum Khan’s men, armed with swords of every imaginable shape and weight, swept voiceless into an enemy that could not get out of their way; and regiments in the rear that never felt the shock turned and bolted from the wrath in front of them.

I climbed out to the edge of the trees, and yelled for Fred, waving both arms and my hat and a branch.  He saw me at last, and brought his hundred men down the ramp at a run.

“Join Monty,” I shouted, “and help him clear the woods.”

He led his men into the trees like a pack of hounds in full cry, and I limped after them, arriving breathless in time to see the Turks in front of Monty in full retreat, fearful because the Rajput’s cavalry had turned their flank.  Then Monty and Fred got their men together and swung them down into the pass to cover Rustum Khan’s retreat when the charge should have spent itself.

The Rajput had managed to demoralize the Turkish infantry, but Mahmoud’s guns were in the rear, far out of reach.  Bursting shells did more destruction as he shepherded the squadrons back again than bullet, bayonet and slippery clay combined to do in the actual charge itself.  Monty gave orders to throw down the fringe of trees and let them through to the castle road, so saving them from the total annihilation in store if they had essayed to scramble up the slippery ramp.  And then Fred’s men joined Monty’s contingent, helping them fortify the new line—­deepening and reversing the trench the Turks had dug below the ramp, and continuing that line along through the remaining edge of trees that still stood between the enemy and the castle road.