cording to the
customs of those times, not to rest until both Vang Khan and Temujin
should be destroyed.

The manner in which they took the oath was this: They brought out into
an open space on the plain where they had assembled to take the oath,
a horse, a wild ox, and a dog. At a given signal they fell upon these
animals with their swords, and cut them all to pieces in the most
furious manner. When they had finished, they stood together and called
out aloud in the following words:

"Hear! O God! O heaven! O earth! the oath that we swear against Vang
Khan and Temujin. If any one of us spares them when we have them in
our power, or if we fail to keep the promise that we have made to
destroy them, may we meet with the same fate that has befallen these
beasts that we have now cut to pieces."

They uttered this imprecation in a very solemn manner, standing among
the mangled and bloody remains of the beasts which lay strewed all
about the ground.

These preparations had been made thus far very secretly; but tidings
of what was going on came, before a great while, to Karakorom, Vang
Khan's capital. Temujin was greatly excited when he heard the news. He
immediately proposed that he should take his own troops, and join with
them as many of Vang Khan's soldiers as could be conveniently spared,
and go forth to meet the enemy. To this Vang Khan consented. Temujin
took one half of Vang Khan's troops to join his own, leaving the other
half to protect the capital, and so set forth on his expedition. He
went off in the direction toward the frontier where he had understood
the principal part of the hostile forces were assembling. After a long
march, probably one of many days, he arrived there before the enemy
was quite prepared for him. Then followed a series of manoeuvres
and counter-manoeuvres, in which Temujin was all the time
endeavoring to bring the rebels to battle, while they were doing all
in their power to avoid it. Their object in this delay was to gain
time for re-enforcements to come in, consisting of bodies of troops
belonging to certain members of the league who had not yet arrived.

At length, when these manoeuvres were brought to an end, and the
battle was about to be fought, Temujin and his whole army were one day
greatly surprised to see his father-in-law, Vang Khan himself, coming
into the camp at the head of a small and forlorn-looking band of
followers, who had all the appearance of fugitives escaped from a