merely with breaking arches, and throwing down
the piers. We had got our rams and levers under the living rock itself
on which all the whole fabric stood; and fire stood ready to heat the
rams for their work; and when the word was given, the whole could be
sent crashing down the face of the cliffs beyond chance of repair.

All was, I say, finally prepared in this fashion, and then I gave the
word to hold. A narrow ledge still remained undestroyed, and offered
footway, and over this I crossed. The cut we had made was immediately
below the uppermost gate of all, and below it there were three more
massive gates still unviolated, besides the one then being so vehemently
attacked. Already, the garrisons had been retired from these, and I
passed through them all in turn, unchallenged and unchecked, and came to
that busy rampart where the twelve Priests left alive worked, stripped
to the waist, at heaving down the murderous rocks.

For awhile I busied myself at their side, stopping an occasional
fire-tube dart or arrow on my shield and passing them the tidings. The
attack was growing fiercer every minute now. The enemy had packed the
pass below well-nigh full of their dead, and our battering stones had
less distance to fall and so could do less execution. They pressed
forward more eagerly than ever with their scaling ladders, and it was
plain that soon they would inevitably put the place to the storm. Even
during the short time I was there, their sling-stones and missiles took
life from three more of the twelve who stood with me on the defence.

So I gave the word for one more furious avalanche of rock to be pelted
down, and whilst the few living were crawling out from those killed
by the discharge, and whilst the next band of reinforcements came
scrambling up over the bodies, I sent my nine remaining men away at a
run up the steep stairway of the path, and then followed them myself.
Each of the gates in turn we passed, shutting them after us, and
breaking the bars and levers with which they were moved, and not till
we were through the last did the roar of shouts from below tell that the
besiegers had found the gate they bit against was deserted.

One by one we balanced our way across the narrow ledge which was left
where the path had been destroyed, and one poor Priest that carried a
wound grew giddy, and lost his balance here, and toppled down to his
death in the abyss below before a hand could be stretched out to steady