ry angry.
When he found he could not cause the abandonment of the town, he sent in
word to say that he would burn it. Not three hundred foreigners, nor
three thousand, should protect these lazy, unpatriotic folk from his
vengeance. He gave them till the new moon of a certain month, and if the
town were not evacuated by that time he declared that he would destroy
it. He would burn it down, and kill certain men whom he mentioned, who
had been the principal assistants of the foreigners. This warning was
quite public, and came to the ears of the English officer almost at
once. When he heard it he laughed.

He had three hundred men, and the rebels had three hundred. His were all
magnificently trained and drilled troops, men made for war; the Burmans
were peasants, unarmed, untrained. He was sure he could defeat three
thousand of them, or ten times that number, with his little force, and
so, of course, he could if he met them in the open; no one knew that
better, by bitter experience, than Maung Yaing. The villagers, too,
knew, but nevertheless they were stricken with fear, for Maung Yaing was
a man of his word. He was as good as his threat.

One night, at midnight, the face of the fort where the Ghurkas lived on
the hill was suddenly attacked. Out of the brushwood near by a heavy
fire was opened upon the breastwork, and there was shouting and beating
of gongs. So all the Ghurkas turned out in a hurry, and ran to man the
breastwork, and the return fire became hot and heavy. In a moment, as it
seemed, the attackers were in the village. They had burst in the north
gate by the river face, killed the Burmese guard on it, and streamed in.
They lit torches from a fire they found burning, and in a moment the
village was on fire. Looking down from the hill, you could see the
village rushing into flame, and in the lurid light men and women and
children running about wildly. There were shouts and screams and shots.
No one who has never heard it, never seen it, can know what a village is
like when the enemy has burst in at night. Everyone is mad with hate,
with despair, with terror. They run to and fro, seeking to kill, seeking
to escape being killed. It is impossible to tell one from another. The
bravest man is dismayed. And the noise is like a great moan coming out
of the night, pierced with sharp cries. It rises and falls, like the
death-cry of a dying giant. It is the most terrible sound in the world.
It makes the heart stop.

To