Escape was impossible. The pass was filled
with horsemen. It would take time to open an avenue of flight, and still
those death-dealing rocks came down, smashing the strongest armor like
pasteboard, strewing the pass with dead and bleeding bodies.
And now the horses, terrified, wounded, mad with pain and alarm, began
to plunge and rear, trebling the confusion and terror, crushing fallen
riders under their hoofs, adding their quota to the sum of death and
dismay. Many of them rushed wildly into the lake which bordered one side
of the pass, carrying their riders to a watery death. In a few minutes'
time that trim and soldierly array, filled with hope of easy victory and
disdain of its foes, was converted into a mob of maddened horses and
frightened men, while the rocky pass beneath their feet was strewn
thickly with the dying and the dead.
Yet all this had been done by fifty men, fifty banished patriots, who
had hastened back on learning that their country was in danger, and
stationing themselves among the cliffs above the pass, had loosened and
sent rolling downwards the stones and huge fragments of rock which lay
plentifully there.
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