Ned could never remember clearly the next few moments in that red and
awful scene. It seemed to him afterward that he went mad for the time.
He was conscious of groans and cries, of the fierce shouting of the
Mexicans, wild with the taste of blood, of the incessant crackling of
the rifles and muskets, and of falling bodies. He saw gathering over
himself and his slaughtered comrades a great column of smoke, pierced by
innumerable jets of fire, and he caught glimpses of the swart faces of
the Mexicans as they pulled triggers. From right and left came the crash
of heavy but distant volleys, showing that the other two columns were
being massacred in the same way.
He felt the thunder of hoofs and a horse was almost upon him, while the
rider, leaning from the saddle, cut at him with a saber. Ned, driven by
instinct rather than reason, sprang to one side the next instant, and
then the horseman was lost in the smoke. He dashed against a figure, and
was about to strike with his fist, the only weapon that he now had, when
he saw that he had collided with a Texan, unwounded like himself. Then
he, too, was lost in the smoke.
A consuming rage and horror seized Ned. Why he was not killed he never
knew.
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