plight, his brothers, all mighty car-warriors, rushed impetuously to
that spot with a large force. He then ascended the resplendent car of
Sutasoma. Taking up another bow, he continued, O king, to pierce thy son.
Then many warriors on thy side, accompanied by a large force, rushed
impetuously and surrounded thy son (for rescuing him). Then commenced a
fierce battle between thy troops and theirs, O Bharata, at that dreadful
hour of midnight, increasing the population of Yama's kingdom.'"

SECTION CLXIX

"Sanjaya said, 'Against Nakula who was engaged in smiting thy host,
Suvala's son (Sakuni) in wrath, rushed with great impetuosity and
addressing him, said, "Wait! Wait!" Each enraged with the other and each
desirous of slaying the other, those two heroes struck each other with
shafts sped from their bows drawn to their fullest stretch. Suvala's son
in that encounter displayed the same measure of skill that Nakula
displayed, O king, in shooting showers of arrows. Both pierced with
arrows, O king, in that battle, they looked beautiful like a couple of
porcupines with quills erect on their bodies. The armour of each cut off
by means of shafts with straight points and golden wings, and each bathed
in blood, those two warriors looked resplendent in that dreadful battle
like two beautiful and brilliant Kalpa trees, or like two flowering
Kinsukas on the field of battle. Indeed, O king, those two heroes in that
encounter, both pierced with arrows, looked beautiful like a couple of
Salmali trees with prickly thorns on them. Casting oblique glances at
each other, with eyes expanded in rage, whose corners had become red,
they seemed to scorch each other by those glances. Then thy
brother-in-law, excited with wrath, and smiling the while, pierced
Madri's son in the chest with a barbed arrow of keen point. Deeply
pierced by that great bowman, viz., thy brother-in-law, Nakula sat down
on the terrace of his car and swooned away. Beholding his proud foe, that
mortal enemy of his in that plight, Sakuni uttered a roar loud as that of
the clouds at the end of summer. Recovering consciousness, Nakula, the
son of Pandu, once more rushed against Suvala's son, like the Destroyer
himself of wide-open mouth. Inflamed with rage, O bull of Bharata's race,
he pierced Sakuni with sixty arrows, and more with a hundred long shafts
at the centre of his chest. He then cut off Sakuni's bow with arrow fixed
thereon, into two fragments, at the handle. A