Now the Easterns stayed their advance, for their front ranks lay prone, and those behind must climb over them if they could.  Yes, standing there in glittering groups they rocked and hesitated although their officers struck them with swords and lances to drive them forward.  Once more our front rank rose and loosed, and once more we dropped and let the shafts of the second speed over us.  It was too much, flesh and blood could not bear more of those arrows.  Thousands upon thousands were down and the rest began to flee in confusion.

Then at my command the ivory horns sounded the charge.  Every man slung his bow upon his back and drew his short sword.

“On to them!” I cried and leapt forward.

Like a black torrent we rushed down the hill, leaping over the dead and wounded.  The retreat became a rout since before these ebon, great-eyed warriors the soft Easterns did not care to stand.  They fled screaming,

“These are devils!  These are devils!”

We were among them now, hacking and stabbing with the short swords upon their heads and backs.  There was no need to aim the blow, they were so many.  Like a huddled mob of cattle they turned and fled down Nile.  But my orders had reached the vanguard and these, hidden in the growing crops on the narrow neck of swampy land between the hills and the Nile, met them with arrows as they came, also raked them from the steep cliff side.  Their chariot wheels sank into the mud till the horses were slain; their footmen were piled in heaps about them, till soon there was a mighty wall of dead and dying.  And our centre and rearguard came up behind.  Oh! we slew and slew, till before the sun was an hour high over half the army of the Great King was no more.  Then we re-formed, having suffered but little loss, and drank of the water of the Nile.

“All is not done,” I cried.

For the Immortals still remained behind us, gathered in massed ranks about their king.  Also there were many thousands of others between these and the walls of Amada, and to the south of the city yet a second army, that with which Bes had been left to deal, with what success I knew not.

“Ethiopians,” I shouted, “cease crying Victory, since the battle is about to begin.  Strike, and at once before the Easterns find their heart again.”

So we advanced upon the Immortals, all of us, for now the vanguard had joined our strength.

In long lines we advanced over that blood-soaked plain, and as we came the Great King loosed his remaining chariots against us.  It availed him nothing, since the horses could not face our arrows whereof, thanks be to the gods!  I had prepared so ample a store, carried in bundles by lads.  Scarce a chariot reached our lines, and those that did were destroyed, leaving us unbroken.

The chariots were done with and their drivers dead, but there still frowned the squares of the Immortals.  We shot at them till nearly all our shafts were spent, and, galled to madness, they charged.  We did not wait for the points of those long spears, but ran in beneath them striking with our short swords, and oh! grim and desperate was that battle, since the Easterns were clad in mail and the Ethiopians had but short jerkins of bull’s hide.