tongue across the water.
The noise soon increased. It would seem that Mudjah Ideen ("Holy
Warriors")--said to be mostly old Tripoli fighters--accompanied the
pontoon section and regulars of the Seventy-fifth Regiment, for loud
exhortations often in Arabic of "Brothers die for the faith; we can die
but once," betrayed the enthusiastic irregular.

The Egyptians waited till the Turks were pushing their boats into the
water; then the Maxims attached to the battery suddenly spoke and the
guns opened with case at point-blank range at the men and boats crowded
under the steep bank opposite them.

Immediately, a violent fire broke out on both sides of the canal, the
enemy replying to the rifles and machine gun fire and the battery on our
bank. Around the guns it was impossible to stand up, but the gunners
stuck to the work, inflicting terrible punishment.

A little torpedo boat with a crew of thirteen patrolling the canal
dashed up and landed a party of four officers and men to the south of
Tussum, who climbed up the eastern bank and found themselves in a
Turkish trench, and escaped by a miracle with the news. Promptly the
midget dashed in between the fires and enfiladed the eastern bank amid a
hail of bullets, and destroyed several pontoon boats lying unlaunched on
the bank. It continued to harass the enemy, though two officers and two
men were wounded.

As the dark, cloudy night lightened toward dawn fresh forces came into
action. The Turks, who occupied the outer, or day, line of the Tussum
post, advanced, covered by artillery, against the Indian troops holding
the inner, or night, position, while an Arab regiment advanced against
the Indian troops at the Serapeum post.

The warships on the canal and lake joined in the fray. The enemy brought
some six batteries of field guns into action from the slopes west of
Kataib-el-Kheil. Shells admirably fused made fine practice at all the
visible targets, but failed to find the battery above mentioned, which,
with some help from a detachment of infantry, beat down the fire of the
riflemen on the opposite bank and inflicted heavy losses on the hostile
supports advancing toward the canal. A chance salvo wounded four men of
the battery, but it ran more risk from a party of about twenty of the
enemy who had crossed the canal in the dark and sniped the gunners from
the rear till they were finally rounded up by the Indian cavalry and
compelled to surrender.

Supported by land naval