And when the column reached this point the six guns, aimed by
old and skilful gunners, at a given word swept road and mountain-side with
a storm of leaden hail. It was a fire no mortal man could stand up against,
and the practised gunners rammed their pieces full again,
and before the smoke had cleared or the reverberation had died away
among the mountains, had fired the guns again and yet again.
The road was cleared of living things when the draught setting down the river
drew the smoke away; but it was no discredit to the other force;
for no army that was ever uniformed could stand against that battery
in that pass. Again and again the attempt was made to get a body of men up
under cover of the woods and rocks on the mountain-side, while the guns below
utilized their better ammunition from longer range; but it was useless.
Although one of the lieutenants and several men were killed in the skirmish,
and a number more were wounded, though not severely, the old battery
commanded the mountain-side, and its skilful gunners swept it at every point
the foot of man could scale. The sun went down flinging his last flame
on a victorious battery still crowning the mountain pass.
The dead were buried by night in a corner of the little plateau,
borne to their last bivouac on the old gun-carriages which they had stood by
so often -- which the men said would "sort of ease their minds.
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