A dagger snatched from the harness of her
mistress was waved aloft by some fair slave, its shimmering blade
crimson with the lifeblood of its owner; swords plucked from
the bodies of the dead about them; heavy ornaments which could be
turned into bludgeons--such were the implements with which these
fair women wreaked the long-pent vengeance which at best could
but partially recompense them for the unspeakable cruelties and
indignities which their black masters had heaped upon them. And
those who could find no other weapons used their strong fingers
and their gleaming teeth.
It was at once a sight to make one shudder and to cheer; but in a
brief second we were engaged once more in our own battle with only
the unquenchable battle cry of the women to remind us that they
still fought--"Rise slaves!" "Rise slaves!"
Only a single thin rank of men now stood between us and Issus. Her
face was blue with terror. Foam flecked her lips. She seemed too
paralysed with fear to move. Only the youth and I fought now. The
others all had fallen, and I was like to have gone down too from
a nasty long-sword cut had not a hand reached out from behind my
adversary and clutched his elbow as the blade was falling upon me.
The youth sprang to my side and ran his sword through the fellow
before he could recover to deliver another blow.
I should have died even then but for that as my sword was tight
wedged in the breastbone of a Dator of the First Born.
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