After having made his ineffectual effort to stop the cavalry, Sartorius ordered Lieutenant Maxwell to gallop after them, already in full flight to Trinkitat, and try to rally them. Maxwell overtook them. He gave his instructions to the Egyptian officer in command. The latter would not even try to get his men together. He refused thrice. Maxwell then shot him through the head. He succeeded in rallying some forty or fifty men; but another band of fugitives coming up, swept them off as in a deluge. The road back to Trinkitat became nothing but a long line of fugitives. The men not only threw away their arms and accoutrements, but even great part of their clothing, in order to get away the faster. Officers were seen to shoot their own men for the sake of obtaining their horses. A large body of Arabs followed the flying soldiers at a steady pace, stabbing them through the back as they overtook them. Some few of the Soudanese troops who had retained their rifles occasionally turned and fired as they retreated, but most of the fugitives were too overcome by terror to resist. As the pursuers neared them, they threw themselves screaming on the ground, and were speared or sabred one after another. This carnage lasted during a pursuit of upwards of five miles. The enemy pursued right up to Fort Baker, as the fortification on the mainland side of the lagoon was called. The garrison left to defend the work had long since taken flight. Sartorius and the surviving English officers formed a cordon across the narrow neck of land. Their purpose was to stop all but the wounded, but the endeavour failed. The fugitives in hundreds rushed on, many of them in a state of absolute nudity. The cavalry positively refused to obey the orders of the English, their own officers having already fled to Trinkitat. They even threw away their saddles, and turned their horses loose, making the rest of their way to the beach on foot, in order that they might not be sent out to fight again. Fortunately, the enemy did not follow up the pursuit beyond Fort Baker, otherwise scarcely any of the army would have escaped. Baker was one of the last to return to the fort. Finding it impossible to rally any of the men at the fort, Sartorius was sent on to man the lines of Trinkitat, in order to protect the embarkation. Arrived at Trinkitat, he succeeded to some extent in manning the lines with the few men in whose hands rifles remained.