Into them went the forerunners, to be pierced by the sharp, fire-hardened stakes set at the bottom of each pit.

Vainly did those who were near enough to understand their danger call to the ranks behind to stop.

They could not or would not comprehend, and had no room to extend their front.

Forward surged the human torrent, thrusting all in front of it to death by wounds or suffocation in those deadly holes, till one by one they were filled level with the ground by struggling men and horses, over whom the army still rushed on.
How many perished there I do not know, but after the battle was over we found scarcely a pit that was not crowded to the brim with dead.

Truly this device of Ragnall's, for if I had conceived the idea, which was unfamiliar to the Kendah, it was he who had carried it out in so masterly a fashion, had served us well.
Still the enemy surged on, since the pits were only large enough to hold a tithe of them, till at length, horsemen and footmen mixed up together in inextricable confusion, their mighty mass became faintly visible quite close to us, a blacker blot upon the gloom.
Then my turn came.