It was the last sleep for many. Some never woke again, but passed to eternity. Those who survived awoke with the first glimmer of morn. Then despair seized upon them. In the dark hours of night the rising waters had drifted their boat into a creek, where they were speedily discovered by the pitiless enemy. It was a narrow creek running inland for about two hundred yards. On each side the natives gathered in hundreds, and they poured in a deadly shower of musket-balls. Lying at the bottom of the boat was an officer who had hitherto been in command, but he was wounded unto death now. Both his arms were shattered; but, without betraying the slightest pain, he issued his orders. “Comrades,” he cried, “we belong to a race that never waits to be smitten. Let these merciless bloodhounds see that even in death we know how to smite our enemies.” No second bidding was needed. Fourteen men and officers--the only unwounded ones in the boat--sprang ashore, and, with a wild cheer, charged the surging multitude. The terrified crowd fell back. Such courage appalled them; they were unused to it; they could not comprehend it. The brave fourteen hacked out a path, then rushed back again. Alas! the boat had drifted out into the stream once more, and the fourteen were left upon the pitiless land, while their doomed comrades floated down the pitiless river. At some little distance rose the towers of a Hindoo temple. The eyes of the leader of the fourteen saw this. He raised a cheer and rushed towards it, followed by his comrades. They gained the temple, pursued by a howling rabble; but with fixed bayonets they held the doorway. On poured the dusky wretches, but they could not break down that wall of steel. The black and bleeding corpses piled up and formed a rampart, and from behind this barricade of human flesh the little band delivered a galling fire. There was some putrid water in the temple, but this the people drank with avidity, for they were choking. It gave them new strength, and they loaded and fired without ceasing. Hundreds of the enemy fell, and back there sped a messenger to the Nana with word that the remnant of the broken army could not be conquered. He raved when he heard the news. This defiance and gallantry galled him beyond measure; he felt that though he had “scotched the snake he had not killed it,” and he began to realise that, powerful as he was, he was still far from being powerful enough to crush his valiant foe. “A thousand curses on them!” he cried, when his agent delivered the message. “Go back to your leader, and tell him to burn these Feringhees out, and for every white man that escapes I will have a hundred black ones executed.”