his pistol, and Sharpe fell. With one leap, Crittenden reached him with
the butt of his gun and, with savage exultation, he heard the skull of
the Spaniard crash.

* * * * *

Straight in front, the Spaniards were running like rabbits through the
brush. To the left, Kent was charging far around and out of sight. To
the right, Rough Riders and negroes were driving Spaniards down one hill
and up the next. The negroes were as wild as at a camp meeting or a
voodoo dance. One big Sergeant strode along brandishing in each hand a
piece of his carbine that had been shot in two by a Mauser bullet, and
shouting at the top of his voice, contemptuously:

"Heah, somebody, gimme a gun! gimme a gun, I tell ye," still striding
ahead and looking never behind him. "You don't know how to fight. Gimme
a gun!" To the negro's left, a young Lieutenant was going up the hill
with naked sword in one hand and a kodak in the other--taking pictures
as he ran. A bare-headed boy, running between him and a gigantic negro
trooper, toppled suddenly and fell, and another negro stopped in the
charge, and, with a groan, bent over him and went no farther.

And all the time that machine gun was playing on the trenches like a
hard rain in summer dust. Whenever a Spaniard would leap from the
trench, he fell headlong. That pitiless fire kept in the trenches the
Spaniards who were found there--wretched, pathetic, half-starved little
creatures--and some terrible deeds were done in the lust of slaughter.
One gaunt fellow thrust a clasp-knife into the buttock of a shamming
Spaniard, and, when he sprang to his feet, blew the back of his head
off. Some of the Riders chased the enemy over the hill and lay down in