"Look out," panted Thaxton, "the cavalry -- they've charged --
run!" Gethryn glanced over his shoulder. All along the edge of the
frantic, panic-stricken crowd the gleaming crests of the cavalry
surged and dashed like a huge wave of steel.

Cries, groans, and curses rose and were drowned in the thunder of the
charging horses and the clashing of weapons.

"Spy!" screamed a voice in his ear. Gethryn turned, but the fellow
was legging it for safety.

Suddenly he saw a woman who, pushed and crowded by the mob, stumbled
and fell. In a moment he was by her side, bent over to raise her, was
hurled upon his face, rose blinded by dust and half-stunned, but
dragging her to her feet with him.

Swept onward by the rush, knocked this way and that, he still managed
to support the dazed woman, and by degrees succeeded in controlling
his own course, which he bent toward the Obelisk. As he neared the
goal of comparative safety, exhausted, he suffered himself and the
woman to be carried on by the rush. Then a blinding flash split the
air in front, and the crash of musketry almost in his face hurled him
back.

Men threw up their hands and sank in a heap or spun round and pitched
headlong. For a moment he swayed in the drifting smoke. A blast of
hot, sickening air enveloped him. Then a dull red cloud seemed to
settle slowly, crushing, grinding him into the earth.