I was half choked with the smoke of the burning bushes as they rushed through them, and a hundred yards below they stopped, threw me face downwards on the grass, forced my hands together behind my back, tied them there, and then two of the hulking cowards sat on me. I didn’t think—I didn’t feel any pain; my brain seemed absolutely frozen, for, just as that brute had fallen and I had kicked myself free, I saw something which I shall never forget for the rest of my life. Captain Hunter had seen me and, head and shoulders above the retreating Chinamen, had plunged down through them, roaring to his men to follow. From the bushes below the great black-bearded man suddenly rose up. With curses and blows he rallied his men, and they turned and faced upwards. Down came Captain Hunter through a mob of them, cutting his way to me. He had a long-handled axe in his hand. Circling it round and round his head, striking to left and right, he was carving a way through them, and they gave way and fled helter-skelter, to leave him confronted by the huge European. I saw Captain Hunter’s face light up with a fierce joy, and he raised his axe for a mighty stroke; but the European fired his revolver point-blank, the axe dropped from his hand, his arms sank to his side, he stared stupidly in front of him, the revolver cracked again, and, with a sob, I saw Captain Hunter disappear beneath a howling mass of Chinamen, who turned again with a yell of triumph. But by this time his marines had poured over the breast-work and flung themselves in front of his body, and that was the last I saw of that awful hilltop—the little knot of marines fighting slowly backwards towards their breast-work, and carrying Captain Hunter with them. I cared for nothing then. I did not even mind those brutes sitting on me. Chinese came flying past, some shrieking with fright, others screaming with pain. One or two, when they saw me, tried to spring at me; but the two men drove them off, then lifted me up like a doll and carried me farther away, covering me with a Chinaman’s tunic to prevent me from being recognized. They stripped it from a native lying wounded and dying in the bushes. The noise of firing recommenced above me, and some bullets came crackling through the bushes (our bullets), and I almost wished that one would kill me. Chinese yells burst out again in the direction of the Bush Hill. They were answered by defiant cheers, one of our Maxims began to rattle, then a burst of Mauser firing drowned every other sound, the noise of fighting dwindled away, a solitary shout, a piercing scream, the Maxim ceased, and all was still once more. I could not tell whether that attack had been repulsed or whether it had swept across the hill, and felt that I only wanted to die.