Living as they did perfectly isolated and surrounded by a great river, even if they had heard of such things and occasionally seen an old gaspipe musket that reached them in the course of trade, of modern guns and their terrible power they knew nothing.

Small blame to them, therefore, if their courage evaporated in face of a form of sudden death which to them must have been almost magical.

At any rate they fled incontinently, leaving their dead and wounded on the ground.
Now again we thought of flight, which perhaps would have proved our wisest course, but hesitated because we could not believe that the Fung had left the road clear, or done more than retreat a little to wait for us.

While we lost time thus the mist thinned a great deal, so much indeed that we could see our exact position.

In front of us, towards the city side, lay a wide open space, whereof the walls ended against those of Harmac itself, to which they formed a kind of vestibule or antechamber set there to protect this gateway of the town through which we had ridden in the darkness, not knowing whither we went.
"Those inner doors are open," said Orme, nodding his head toward the great portals upon the farther side of the square.