Rudyard Kipling 25 and his friends howled. “They look like the Mahdi’s men,” said Torpenhow, elbowing himself into the crush of the square; “but what thousands of ’em there are! The tribes hereabout aren’t against us, I know.” “Then the Mahdi’s taken another town,” said Dick, “and set all these yelping devils free to show us up. Lend us your glass.” “Our scouts should have told us of this. We’ve been trapped,” said a subaltern. “Aren’t the camel guns ever going to begin? Hurry up, you men!” There was no need of any order. The men flung themselves panting against the sides of the square, for they had good reason to know that whoso was left outside when the fighting began would very probably die in an extremely unpleasant fashion. The little hundred-and-fifty-pound camel-guns posted at one corner of the square opened the ball as the square moved forward by its right to get possession of a knoll of rising ground. All had fought in this manner many times before, and there was no novelty in the entertainment; always the same hot and stifling formation, the smell of dust and leather, the same boltlike rush of the enemy, the same pressure on the weakest side, the few minutes of hand-to-hand scuffle, and then the silence of the desert, broken only by the yells of those whom their handful of cavalry attempted to purse. They had become careless. The camel-guns spoke at intervals, and the square slouched forward amid the protesting of the camels. Then came the attack of three thousand men who had not learned from books that it is impossible for troops in close order to attack against breech-loading fire. A few dropping shots heralded their approach, and a few horsemen led, but the bulk of the force was naked humanity, mad with rage, and armed with the spear and the sword. The instinct of the desert, where