of them, maddened and howling, trying to get on to a place of safety. Uselessly those who stood on the piles of stones argued that the piles could not hold them all, that someone had to die. But no one wanted to die, they were all anxious to clamber up on the rocks. Those who stood on the piles perforce had to defend themselves against that pressure if they did not wish to be displaced. Their mallets and battle-axes crashed against the arms and skulls of other Mongols. Brother cared not about brother in that terrible moment of approaching death. Friend murdered friend with fiercer wrath than he ever would have an enemy. Those of the sinking who stood deepest in the water, back of the rest, nearest their watery death, pressed forward, those who stood close by the piles exposed to the blows of their comrades, pressed backward screaming; those in the center howled with pain and fear, crowded on all sides, pushed by those in front and back into the water. Some already sinking, frantically caught hold of the heaped-up stones beneath the surface, dislodging them.
Suddenly five of the piles gave way and all those who had stood upon them were thrown into the water and were in the same predicament as those from whom they had defended themselves. And the unfortunate ones, who had not been allowed to stand upon the piles, their senses benumbed by deathly fear, now whooped joyously whenever a new pile gave way, throwing new sacrifices into the jaws of the unmerciful foe.
A killing, destructive mania had seized some of them who began killing and ruining everything in sight. One of them, a giant of a man with face of purplish hue, his teeth clenched and lips bitten until they bled, was blindly hacking away with his battle-axe at any of his comrades who came near or chanced to fall under his hands and when no one came to hand he hacked away at the foaming bloody waves.
Another, giggling hysterically, kept knocking down into the
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