Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/49

Rh secretly prepared to blow up in case of a reverse, and formed up in the plain beyond. No tactics were possible where the inequality in force was so outrageous. But we hastily threw up a breastwork, more for concealment than for any real protection, placed our two guns in the centre with the horses and ammunition in the rear, and lay down to await the foe.

We had not to wait long. Already the smoke from a thousand funnels darkened the sky to the north-west, and the confused hum as of a distant cataract announced his approach. Then a dark cloud gathered in the horizon, broken by flashes of light, and rolled towards us, growing in length and blackness, and reminding me forcibly of a sandstorm I once witnessed in the African desert. It was an awful sight, sufficient to try the nerves of more practised soldiers than those under my command.

I repeated my orders. Whatever their other defects my troops were all marksmen, and the chilled steel projectiles from their powerful rifles were sufficient to pierce boiler plating at short range.