CHAPTER XXVIII.
Now the battle raged on all sides. Not one but many went forth from each army, and were engaged in groups fighting hand to hand, or throwing missiles. The sudden appearance of Sosee, which revived the hopes of the Ammi, who thought the girl and the end of the war were both within their grasp, increased their fury when they saw her followed by a captor, and a general rush was made to take the field and the girl by storm.
First Pounder entered the combat, and was met by an ape from the north country. This ape was descended from a long line of heroes; Sookaloo was his father, who had fought bumble-bees in the meadows about the great springs, and there the bones of his kindred repose. This ape, advancing to meet Pounder, drew the battle toward him. Both clenched and opened their jaws, and soon both were in each other’s arms and teeth. Anger and strength met in Pounder, and were united for the death of his antagonist. But this was delayed awhile, andstruggles, growls and blood were yielded instead. Then weakness followed, and at last darkness gathered about the eyes of the ape; his thoughts took flight, and quiet settled over him even in battle.
Striding over his body Pounder now rushed on to new conquests, impatient for more strife. A great gorilla-like monster next met him, approaching from afar. With thoughts of death in his eye, he came walking on his hands, swinging his great body between them, like a huge kettle between two posts. He appeared to be walking and sitting at once.
“Come you to bring new honor to these arms?” said Pounder. “I will soon bear your death about me as a trophy, and those that I send out of the world will not be lonely beyond the Swamp.”
As when Day and Night meet at dawn, and, in hot contest redden the whole sky with blood, and, Night being slain, Day moves on over the sky in undisputed and undivided sway, so these mighty heroes met, and in the battle the ape was overcome and sank from the contest, while Pounder, rising like the sun from the death of Night, marched on victorious over the scene, and was lord of the field.
On again rushed Pounder, like Hector at Troy; and the Apes, seeing their warriors fall at his strokes, feared to engage him in single combat.
“Let us attack him together,” they said; and two great apes stood up to meet him, like twin mountain peaks approached by a storm. One met his fist with his eye and saw no more that day; the other seized his armand in that grasp laid hold of Death, whom none survive; and as he fell the dull earth reëchoed the crash to the mountains, which he alone did not hear.
Terror now took hold of all that beheld the mighty Pounder, and they fled from his advance as peasants working in a field flee from an approaching flood, some to be overtaken and destroyed, and others to escape to a safe place in the highlands. Pounder now chased, instead of fought, the Apes, hunting for a foe with whom to measure his strength and with difficulty finding one.
At last Ilo, recovering from his wound, but not his rage, rushed again to the field, (impelled also by Sosee), and, seeing the advance of Pounder, which drove the Apes before him, met him with a stone, (which reaches further than an ape’s arm). Forth into the air, like Iris from the command of Jove, rushed this messenger of wrath, and, singing a battle cry as it went, it struck Pounder in the breast; when out went his breath and up went his feet—but only for awhile. Pounder arose again, but, being unable to fight, was carried back by his comrades; and again the fight went on without him, to his great disappointment.
The Apes, encouraged by the arrest of the flood of death, now returned to the field, and everywhere were single fights. Stones, cocoanuts, gourds and bones flew through the air. Cries and groans mingled with growls, and which was man and which was monkey could not be discerned in the battle.
Finger-at-his-nose, an ape from the shores lying to the south, where his ancestors fished for crabs with their tails,and made mighty grimaces while waiting for a bite, scraped the face of Stretch-mouth with a shell, and was put to flight with a club in hands of Abroo; and, as he ran a shower of stones followed him, and he thought the crabs of all the Swamp were pulling at him.
Then High-climber, who was quick to look around and unfriendly to mosquitos, advanced from among the Apes with a cocoanut in his hand. This cocoanut he had pulled in a dense grove at sunset and hid at the foot of a palm, where a buzzard was feeding on an aurochs. The buzzard dug it up and carried it to a mountain crag, where Imko, finding it, brought it to the camp of the Lali. There High-climber, seeing it, again took possession of it and slew Imko the supposed thief. With this cocoanut, High-climber, aiming at the head of Frog-catcher, struck him where the nose separates the eyes, like the mountains of Caucasus between two great seas. Frog-catcher fell and one less Ammi was left to propagate the new race.
Then Watch-the-Girls, furious with rage, rushed forth, and, with a sharp stone and loud shout, mixed in the fight. Ape after ape fell before her, wounded or scared. Like a she-wolf tearing the fold she ran about dealing destruction, while the timid flock fled on all sides, or gathered in groups too frightened to flee. One, Bushy-face thought to resist her, and, turning, aimed a dart at her bright eye. But, too dazzled or too terrified to aim, he missed his mark, when, from the same eye, she sent a dart of defiance and from her hand a stone. Both struck the eye which aimed the first blow, and back went retributionon the wrong intended. Down sank Bushy-face in darkness, and away went all things from his view. To the world the monkey was no more, and to the monkey the world was no more; and which was destroyed has never been settled between them.
Then off in the distance was heard a great chorus of screams, while a rush of all the Apes to that quarter drew the battle with it. The girls, who had been led to the war by Watch-the-Girls, then thought to enter the fight. They had been restrained by their leader; but now, impetuous, they rushed against the enemy; whom seeing, the salacious Apes, enamoured of the daughters of Men, and forgetting their anger in their lust, gave up the battle for a rape, and rushed upon the girls to make them prisoners. The girls, scorning to be carried away instead of attacked, (having come to fight and not to be wooed), struggled hard with their captors, but more from pride than desire.
Then all the Ammi, seeing that their girls were about to be taken, transferred the war to that quarter, and fought for their own, instead of against the enemy. Inspired by jealousy as well as rage, the battle now waxed fiercer, as when to a raging fire is added the wind, and the conflagration spreads into a forest. Death moved about rapidly over the field, visiting now a man and now an ape, and calling him to the Walhalla beyond the Swamp; and the plain was scattered with his victims.