Further retreat seemed impossible, since the second court of the temple, save for a narrow passage, was filled with corn which allowed no room for fighting, while behind it were gathered all the women and children, more than two thousand of them.

Here, or nowhere, we must make our stand and conquer or die.

Up to this time, compared with what which we had inflicted upon the Black Kendah, of whom a couple of thousand or more had fallen, our loss was comparatively slight, say two hundred killed and as many more wounded.

Most of such of the latter as could not walk we had managed to carry into the first court of the temple, laying them close against the cloister walls, whence they watched us in a grisly ring.
This left us about sixteen hundred able-bodied men or many more than we could employ with effect in that narrow place.

Therefore we determined to act upon a plan which we had already designed in case such an emergency as ours should arise.