"Wreathed in sable smoke."
And out from the fire, it would seem, there now rushes an enemy that
King Kara-Kara has but little reckoned on meeting.
No wonder he withdraws his men from the sadly weakened phalanxes of the
island king, and tries to make his way southwards.
Here he is opposed by the stern fierce amazons, and their ranks are soon
strengthened by a cloud of savages, spear-armed, who rush up behind them
and fall upon the enemy in their front.
"Scarcely can they see their foes,
Until at weapon's point they close,
They close in clouds of dust and smoke,
With sword-sway and with lance's thrust;
And such a yell is there
Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air;
Oh! life and death are in the shout,
Recoil and rally, charge and rout,
And triumph and despair."
Neither King Googagoo nor Harry could tell what the meaning of this
sudden attack on the ranks of Kara-Kara meant. It seemed like an
interposition of Providence. So, indeed, they both considered it, and
doubtless they were right.
Meanwhile Kara's army, now sadly thinned, fought like veritable fiends.
Escape there seemed none.
The hills to the east were guarded by the island men, there was the lake
behind them, the new foe in front, and the woods in the west were all
ablaze.
The route was soon complete and the carnage dreadful to contemplate.
So terrible are these fights between African kings that it is no
exaggeration to say, that out of all the thousands that Kara-Kara had
brought into the field hardly one thousand escaped alive, and they had
to force their way through the burning forest, many falling by fire who
had come scathless from the field.
King Kara-Kara was among the killed.
He was found, next day, in the midst of a heap of the bodies of those
who had rallied round him to the last--
"His back to the field, and his feet to the foe."
In his hand he still clasped the spear he would never use again.
"Reckless of life, he'd desperate fought,
And fallen on the plain;
And well in death his trusty brand,
Firm clenched within his manly hand,
Beseemed the monarch slain."
Book 4--CHAPTER SIX.