perate
a rush that they reached the sailors, and for a minute a hand-to-hand
struggle took place--bayonet against spear. But the wild courage of the
natives was of no avail against the steady discipline of the sailors.
The assailants were swept away, and the square moved on.

But the ground was now so broken with bush and rock that the even line
could no longer be preserved. From every bush, and from rifle-pits dug
among them, and from behind rough intrenchments, parties of Arabs leapt
to their feet and hurled themselves in vain upon the British bayonets.
As the front of the square reached the ridge that had formed the Arab
position the fight was most desperate, the enemy throwing themselves
furiously on its flanks; and the Royal Highlanders and the sailors had
to fight hard to win their way through them. But at last the ridge was
won.

Two of the enemy's Krupp guns were captured, and as soon as the square
had been formed up again in order these were turned against the position
the Arabs had now taken up in rear of their first line of defence. In
the centre of the position they now occupied was a brick building, where
an engine for pumping up water for irrigation purposes had formerly
stood. The Arabs had loopholed the walls and surrounded the building
with rifle-pits. Here they made a desperate resistance, until at last
the doors were burst in and the building stormed. Several mud huts were
defended with equal obstinacy, and many of our men were wounded by Arabs
who lay feigning death in the rifle-pits, and then when the first line
of troops had passed leaped out and rushed in among them, cutting and
slashing until bayoneted or shot down.

While the 65th were winning this position the Gordon Highlanders carried
the village, while the Royal Highlanders captured the redoubt at the
extreme right of the position the enemy had first held. The enemy now
had been driven from their last line and fled in all directions, at a
speed that rendered pursuit by the infantry impossible.

During the early portion of the battle the cavalry had been kept in the
rear, out of the range of the enemy's fire, and the men had nothing to
do but to sit quiet on their horses and watch the attack of the infantry
square upon the enemy's position, fretting and fuming not a little that
they were unable to take their part in what was evidently a desperate
struggle. But at last bodies of the Arabs were seen streaming out from
the position, and Gene