m. I saw
him reach over and grasp the throat of one who had his teeth set in my
shoulder, and, holding him straight before him with his arm extended,
break his neck with one blow. Again, his club descended on one black
skull with a glancing blow and shot off to the head of another with the
force of a sledge-hammer.

At the time I did not know that I saw these things; it was all one
writhing, struggling, bloody horror; but afterward the eyes of memory
showed them to me.

Still they came. My arm rose and fell seemingly without order from the
brain; I was not conscious that it moved. It seemed to me that ever
since the beginning of time I had stood in that butcher's doorway and
brought down that bar of gold on thick, black skulls and distorted,
grinning faces. But they would not disappear. One fell; another took
his place; and another, and another, and another.

The bodies of those who fell were dragged away from underneath. I did
not see it, but it must have been so, or soon we would have raised our
own barricade for defense--a barricade of flesh. And there was none.

I began to weaken, and Harry saw it, for he gasped out: "Steady--Paul.
Take it--easy. They can't--last--forever."

His blows were redoubled in fury as he moved closer to me, taking more
than his share of the attack, so that I almost had time to breathe.

But we could not have held out much longer. My brain was whirling
madly and a weight of a thousand tons seemed dragging me remorselessly,
inevitably to the ground. I kept my feet through the force of some
crazy instinct, for will and reason were gone.

And then, for an instant, Harry's eyes met mine, and I read in them
what neither of us could say, nor would. With the fury of despair we
struck out together in one last effort.

Whether the Incas saw in that effort a renewed strength that spoke of
immortality, or whether it happened just at that moment that the
pressure from behind was removed, no longer forcing them to their
death, I do not know. It may have been that, like some better men,
they had merely had enough.

From whatever cause, the attack ceased almost with the suddenness with
which it had begun; they fell back from the doorway; Harry lunged
forward with raised club, and the forms melted away into the darkness
of the corridor.

Harry turned and looked at me as I stood swaying from side to side in
the doorway. Neither of us could speak. Together we staggered back
across