But the command was again, to go forward, coupled with the order to fire at will; and soon Gilbert found himself almost face to face with a crowd of Celestials. He fired his pistol, and saw his man tumble backward; and then, as if by magic, four or five of the Boxers hurled themselves at him.
The fury of that onslaught cannot be described. The young lieutenant had been in several hand-to-hand encounters in Luzon; but no attack by Filipinos could equal this frenzied rush by fanatics, who thought by annihilating the "foreign devils" they would gain for themselves a superior place in the Hereafter.
"Cheri-chi-chi!" was the battle-cry, as it sounded in Gilbert's ears. "Kill! kill! kill!" was the word the Boxers used the most, repeated in several dialects.
Gilbert felt that he must fight as he had never fought before. His sword was in one hand and his pistol in the other. Crack! crack! went the smaller weapon; and then the larger was thrust forward, to find the shoulder of a Celestial beside him. The yellow man, his eyes almost staring from his head with excitement, was on the point of blaz-
