but Peace-Renown jumped up from her place and hastened to view the cause of the danger confronting them.
“Don’t lose courage!” she said to the Tukholians. “We’ll soon fix them! Let them go on shooting. You arm yourselves with spears and crawl downhill. When the first series is half-way up the wall of rock, then strike at them all together! They will themselves shield you from the arrow shots and having knocked down the front ranks, you will knock down also the rear. The darkness is fortunate for us and having warded them off this time, we will have peace for the rest of the night.”
Without a word of protest the Tukholians got down on their hands and knees and let themselves down the steep incline, first having taken spears into their hands. The shots flew for some time yet and then ceased, an indication that the first row on the ladder had reached its top. With bated breath the Tukholians lay in wait for the foe. They heard the squeak of the ladder rungs, the hard rasping breath of the men, the clang of their weapons, and in front of the crouching youths, slowly, pusillanimously, bobbed up their furry turbans and under them the black, fearful heads with their bright beady eyes. Those eyes, fearful and attentive, stared ahead without blinking an eyelash as if they were of glass, past the crouching Tukholians, their heads rising ever higher and higher, now their shoulders showing and below them their backs covered with shaggy furs and now the full expanse of chest. With fierce cries the Tukholians flung themselves upon the Mongols plunging their spears deep into the broad chests of the aggressors. Shouts, groans, wails, shrieks, confusion, here and there spasmodic convulsions of death, here and there a short combat, curses, groans of the damned and like a heavy log, the foe tumbled down the ladder, knocking down subsequent rows of men. On top of that disorderly pile of bloody, moaning, groaning and roaring
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