"Call back the last twenty-five utans," I shouted. "Here seems a
way of escape. Turn back and follow me."
My orders were obeyed by nearer thirty utans, so that some three
thousand men came about and hastened into the teeth of the flood
to reach the corridor up which I directed them.
As the first dwar passed in with his utan I cautioned him to listen
closely for my commands, and under no circumstances to venture into
the open, or leave the pits for the temple proper until I should
have come up with him, "or you know that I died before I could
reach you."
The officer saluted and left me. The men filed rapidly past me and
entered the diverging corridor which I hoped would lead to safety.
The water rose breast high. Men stumbled, floundered, and went
down. Many I grasped and set upon their feet again, but alone
the work was greater than I could cope with. Soldiers were being
swept beneath the boiling torrent, never to rise. At length the
dwar of the 10th utan took a stand beside me. He was a valorous
soldier, Gur Tus by name, and together we kept the now thoroughly
frightened troops in the semblance of order and rescued many that
would have drowned otherwise.
Djor Kantos, son of Kantos Kan, and a padwar of the fifth utan
joined us when his utan reached the opening through which the men
were fleeing. Thereafter not a man was lost of all the hundreds
that remained to pass from the main corridor to the branch.
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