Chapter III

The Legion waited as the storm surged towards it, crescentic, a host of the Past armed with the weapons of Saladin; then the great square broke into flame and smoke on three of its sides and the crash of rifles shook the silence of the desert far away beyond the reach of the voices of the attackers.

The vulture, larger now, saw the dead piling before the guns, and the waves of the living lapping over the ridges of the slain--then, in a flash, came the great break-up.

_Allez, schieb Los_! The Legion, no longer in square formation, was pursuing, attacking, bayoneting. That solid, silent fort of men behind the speaking rifles had burst its bonds of formation and silence. The cries of the fallen, the falling and the dying were drowned out by the piercing yell of the légionnaires, mad with the _cafard_ of Blood.

At last the Legion had found its voice.

The voice of its rage against the world, of its hatred of itself, of its lust for blood and its desire to hack, and hack, and slay.

Stayed up for a moment and held by the very imminence of destruction, the enemy turned upon its pursuers and fought hand to hand.

This lasted but a very little time, and then came the second _débâcle_, worse than the first, and not to be recovered from.

The pursuit conducted by detached companies spread fan-wise to the south, the south-east and the south-west.

The Legion always drives its bayonet home, keeps on striking when once it has struck, and makes an end where it has made a good beginning.