Like others on that bridge, Oman too had gone mad. He did not think, he did not feel. He was a machine. His horse, trained to war, had plunged into the very thick of the battle. On every side men were fighting together: man to man, two to one, three to one, but always without concerted action, always as in a series of duels. Of those in the mêlée, Oman was the only one who wore no armor; and how, during the first ten minutes, he escaped with his life, it would be impossible to say. After that, his shield was omnipresent, his sword all-pervading. Man after man went down before him. Those of Mandu that saw him, marvelled. Their Saint had become inspired by a demon. The Mohammedans regarded him with suspicious fear. Was this an angel, a Jin, come from heaven to defend a chosen country? It seemed, for a few minutes, as if his appearance might turn the tide of battle. But victory was not for Mandu. Where the war-cry of the Prophet now rose in India, it was not to be stilled by any bravery, any heroism. Just now, no one looking at that close-writhing mass of combatants could have told which way the fight was going. But there was, for the Indians, a very _sense_ of defeat, a gradually increasing fear, born of presentiment. Oman felt it with the rest; but still he fought, with the fierceness of despair. Not yet, in the closely packed company, had he caught a glimpse of the young Rajah. Dealing out his blows and parries almost mechanically, Oman found time to wonder in which of the heaps of dead and dying piled against the high balustrades of the causeway, the son of Bhavani lay. But presently the horror of that thought was removed. Just before him, upreared on a bleeding horse, helmetless, blood-smeared, worn almost beyond recognition with the work of the last week, was Viradha, closely beset by a powerful Moslem, whose rich accoutrements and shining scimitar proclaimed him of rank. In a kind of maze, Oman watched the young man parry blow after blow, saw the terrible weapon finally plunged down with undefensible stroke, and, in the same instant, waking from his trance, flung himself forward across the young man’s body and lifted his face to that of the Mohammedan. There was a strange shock. The Moslem recoiled from the blow he had dealt, his eyes fixed in fascination on something that shone on Oman’s uplifted breast:—the Asra ruby, blazing in the sun.