A Queer Race: The Story of a Strange People — page 188: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A QUEER RACE. 185 will be in a blaze? The wood will burn, too; it is as dry as tinder; so shall we, if we stay here.” ‘¢ What shall we do? Ah, 1 see—the gap in the cliff. We must occupy it at once. And it will be who gets there first. JI velieve the Cariberoes are moving that way already. Give immediate orders for all the men to make. for the gap at once—-as hard as they can go.” Fighting was now suspended by mutual consent, or rather under a common compulsion; the Cariberoes and ourselves raced madly for the sole avenue of escape from swift and awful death—death by fire. The gap, more than a mile away, was so narrow at the mouth—being, indeed, for a short distance practically a tunnel—that it could be defended by a handful of men against a host; and if the Cariberoes got there first! | I never ran so fast before—or since—and after my three days’ march I was in tip-top condition, yet, try as I might, I could not keep up with the swifter of my piebald com- _panions. Oliver would have stayed with me, but I bade him for Heaven’s sake hurry on and secure the pass. I would take my chance. Our foremost fellows are now neck and neck with about an equal number of Cariberoes, also splendid runners; and I watch every phase of the contest with sickening anxiety, for upon its issue depends not our lives alone, but the fate of an entire people. , “Thank God! They are drawing ahead. They will win! They will win! Breed and training are telling, as they always do. Bravo, Oliver! Bravo, Wild! One more spurt like that, and —~” | They have done it—the goal isreached! A score of the brave fellows Jeap into the gap, and as their swords flash in the sun and they turn to face the foe, 1 know that the race is won, the victory ours. But the battle has still to be fought. For the start was by no means ‘‘even;” not a third of our little army has gained the pass; while between us and them is a great body of the enemy, trying might and main to force the gap, and through whom we must cut our way or perish. J wait until the remainder of our fellows— among whom are Bolsover and Amyas Hane—come up. I rally them, and then charge right into the thick of the enemy, sword in hand. ‘There is no time for shooting. » Gcomicbooks (elo) m