And again I say it--they were no cowards, those men of Cherkis.

From the inner battlements flew clouds of arrows, of huge stones--as uselessly as before.
Then out from the opened gates poured regiments of horsemen, brandishing javelins and great maces, and shouting fiercely as they drove down upon each end of the Metal Shape.

Under cover of their attack I saw cloaked riders spurring their ponies across the plain to shelter of the cliff walls, to the chance of hiding places within them.

Women and men of the rich, the powerful, flying for safety; after them ran and scattered through the fields of grain a multitude on foot.
The ends of the spindle drew back before the horsemen's charge, broadening as they went--like the heads of monstrous cobras withdrawing into their hoods.

Abruptly, with a lightning velocity, these broadenings expanded into immense lunettes, two tremendous curving and crablike claws.