8/21 Supported by Thurstane's pugnacious presence and hurried up by his vehement orders, they began to fire. They were shaky; didn't aim very well; hardly aimed at all, in fact; blazed away at extraordinary elevations; behaved as men do who have become demoralized. However, as the pieces had a range of several hundred yards, the small bullets hissed venomously over the heads of the Indians, and one of them, by pure accident, brought down a horse. There was an immediate scattering, a multitudinous glinting of hoofs through the light dust of the plain, and then a rally in prancing groups, at a safe distance. |