Adventure Magazine Cover — page 95: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Dixie Pasha steel that they realized the horrible mistake and recognized each other for friends. On both sides the infantry had pressed forward at their heels, and the whole plain was lighted with the flashes of continual fusillades. The same cry echoed from everywhere at once. ‘We are friends! You are firing on us— the Spahis—upon us the Chasseurs—upon us the Legionaries! Stop firing! Stop fir- ing!”’ : The firing ceased, and they drew back and stared at each other, officers and men screaming questions and answers all at once. ‘Where is the enemy?”’ they demand- ed. “The marabout—has he reached the town?” Quick commands that rang out from the foot of the hill were their answer, and a volley swept a lane through them as a bowl clears an alley of ten-pins. Again the cry of “Stop firing!” arose, and the soldiers sprang in a disorderly mass toward those who, they thought, had made this new blunder. Another volley met them, a hoarse chant arose, and the next instant a body of men were upon them, singing as they charged, with fixed bayonets. Again the French fell back, screaming that they were friends. They could not be- lieve otherwise. Arabs firing in volleys and fighting with bayonets! It was incredible. An American negro of the Foreign Le- gion sprang before the advancing square. “Who yoh-all?” he cried. “Who yoh-all dat sing ‘Dixie’ ?”’ A bayonet through his breast was his answer, and the French, understanding at last, leaped upon them with screams of rage. ‘These were the men who had slain the Zouaves at the wells of Ait-Usilt! Their leader was a renegade who had planned the attack and who had taught them to fire in volley and to fight with bay- onets! The Arabs met them with a wall of bris- tling steel, and the march of the eighty across the plain was begun. They had only: three hundred yards to go to gain the river, but it must be cut through the mass of humanity before them with the bayonet. They were in the square formation that Dixie Pasha had taught them, the Hadgi and the sheiks were in the middle, and the same single idea dominated each breast. The Hadgi must be carried in safety to 059 Bou-Denib that he might lead the faithful to victory on the morrow. The French infantry leaped on them and died on the left-handed bayonet thrusts; the cavalry rode at them over friend and foe, and horses and riders went down slashed to ribbons. The barrier of steel was always there and it ripped its way through them as a circle-saw rips through a log, and the eighty stamped their dead foes under foot and climbed over them steadily toward the river, cutting their way through flesh and blood, bone and sinew, leaving a trail of crushed humanity in their wake. They all knew that it would be but a moment before the host beyond the river would understand and come charging to their rescue. And yet—could they last that moment? ‘Two soldiers stood in the place of every one that was cut down; the Arabs ceased to sing and panted as they fought, holding their formation with utmost diff- culty, for the enemy never relaxed his dead- ly compression, but cursed and tore at them and dragged them forth with their naked hands while the bayonets and _ sabers clashed against each other in their bodies. Yet always the square was a square, and always the Hadgi was in the center of it, and always it moved onward as they shriek- ed their cries of “Allah il Allah!” and ‘““Dickshi! Dickshi!”’ while they drove their bayonets home with their terrible left- handed thrusts. But the square and the eighty shrank and shrank and shrank—like a snowball under a July sun. |. Dixie Pasha’s head was gaping under a saber-cut, his breast and legs were slashed, yet he felt a wild thrill of joy as his men, under his hoarse commands, kept their for- mation and protected the Hadgi, and he fought with superhuman strength, heedless of his wounds. They were hemmed in by a world of enemies that was crushing them in ever-tightening constrictions and then— from the oued came a fierce yell of ‘ Allah, il Allah!” as the Arabs charged to their rescue in a body. The French met them with a straggling fire. The more recently arrived infantry which had still maintained its formation riddled them with volleys and drove them back. But the first furious charge had carried them to the heart of the tumult, where the remnant of the eighty still guarded the Hadgi, and when the Arabs COMICLOOCKKS. ECO S|