The Dios-Dios men were not surrounding the church. For some inexplicable reason they had stopped at the ditch. From his elevated position the Lieutenant could see them inside the trench, huddled like fish in a basket. Their fine ardour had singularly cooled. Grovellingly they flattened themselves at the bottom of the ditch, fighting for the underneath position, squirming in such convulsions as are ascribed to a certain gentleman of mediæval legends when sprinkled with holy water. And when Roberts searched for some possible explanation, a fresh surprise puckered his lips in a low whistle. For, strewn over a space extending some fifty yards on the near side of the trench, there were six or seven bodies lying face downward, with arms outstretched toward the church. The Dios-Dios men had not stopped at the trench; they had passed it and had been driven back to it by some mysterious catastrophe. Among the bodies Roberts recognised that of the big epileptic leader of the charge, his gory standard a red spot in a bunch of cogon. The movements in the trench were increasing in vehemence. Suddenly Roberts knew the cause. To his ears, inattentive from the very intensity of his visual observation, there now came a significant sound. At regular, business-like intervals the sharp ping-ing of a Mauser carbine split the air, dying off in a long-drawn whistle. The Lieutenant succeeded in locating the sound. It came from a deserted hut--seemingly from its roof--at the upper end of the ditch. The thing was clear now. The mysterious sharpshooter had the Dios-Dios men enfiladed. And the movements in the ditch were not all actuated by search for shelter. They were convulsive somersaults; stiff hands clutched at earth and grass. A little red stream began to trickle out of the lower end of the ditch. The Dios-Dios men were becoming demoralised. The report of a Mauser is difficult to locate to the most experienced; to the fanatics the thing was impalpable mystery. And the plaza was deserted. If there had been only some human presence to rekindle their rage, they might have gone on in their mad race. But there was nothing. The Scouts were secure in the big stone church. The long, flat plaza was dead; the sun dripped into craniums like molten lead, and from the nowhere hailed the weird missiles, shattering arms, puncturing bodies, bursting open heads. One man crawled back, two followed, ten in a bunch, and in another minute the tall grass was all alive with sinuous movements and there was nobody in the trench, nothing except limp heaps of what looked like cast-off clothing.