Swiftly they were finished; and where they had fought was an eddying
throng clothed in tatters or naked, swaying, drifting, arms tossing
--like marionettes of Satan.
The dead-alive! The slaves of the Dweller!
They swayed and tossed, and then, like water racing through an opened
dam, they swept upon the bridge-head. On and on they pushed, like the
bore of a mighty tide. The frog-men strove against them, clubbing,
spearing, tearing them. But even those worst smitten seemed not to
fall. On they pushed, driving forward, irresistible--a battering ram
of flesh and bone. They clove the masses of the _Akka_, pressing them
to the sides of the bridge and over. Through the open gates they
forced them--for there was no room for the frog-men to stand against
that implacable tide.
Then those of the _Akka_ who were left turned their backs and ran. We
heard the clang of the golden wings of the portal, and none too soon
to keep out the first of the Dweller's dreadful hordes.
Now upon the cavern ledge and over the whole length of the bridge
there were none but the dead-alive, men and women, black-polled
_ladala_, sloe-eyed Malays, slant-eyed Chinese, men of every race that
sailed the seas--milling, turning, swaying, like leaves caught in a
sluggish current.
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