Henga’s men poured into the passage for what Forsyth called “the last fence,” and--all my cautious resolutions thrown to the winds--I followed them with Andros at the head of the supporting column. Ahead of us shouts and cries, clang of blows, dull thud of falling bodies, and crash of stones in the shaft, and then, coming to where Wrexham’s sappers stood by the reopened barricade, we were aware of daylight above us. Stumbling over the fallen débris and the twisted forms among it, we clambered up the steep stairs, shivered and wrecked by the explosion, and climbing through the opening previously blocked by the great iron door--now shattered fragments of still-glowing metal scattered around--came out on the steep cliff-side. In front of us--close-packed--raged a swaying, surging _mêlée_ where Henga’s men sought to drive the Shamans up the steep road to where on the hilltop in an open space showed the low stone buildings of the chief Shaman’s palace and the living-quarters of the citadel. Ten yards ahead of me in the _mêlée_ that swayed now backward, now forward, in little eddies of struggling men, was John fighting with the short-handled pickaxe he had used to clear the barricade in the passage. His face was grimed like that of a miner from his own Durham pits, but his eyes were alight with lust of battle. I saw the pickhead crash into the forehead of a Shaman knifeman ere a new eddy in the battle hid him again. On either side were Forsyth’s tall figure and Henga’s great shoulders. The extra weight of Andros’s column, now pouring out of the shaft mouth, settled the scales in our favour, and, step by step, fighting tooth and nail, the enemy were driven backward up the hill, check and sway and surge forward again over the limp forms underfoot. Behind us the town--lit by the westering sun--lay spread out like a map, and on the edge of the drop behind us--clear-cut against the sky--Andros with his standard-bearer signalling down that we had made good the entrance. Then he joined us again as the fight drove relentlessly forward up the steep slope, and with one final rush we surged into the chief Shaman’s palace in a pack of steel. Somehow my game leg got me there, though well behind the leaders: Andros with his dancing plumes; Stephnos with his keen young face and yellow locks looking like some angel of destruction; John, Henga, and Alec, with dripping blade and blood-smeared pick, smashing their way through the now wavering foe.