by one impulse, advanced. The clangour of their
wings resounded, a hoarse shout arose from their throats, they strained
every nerve to overtake and assist their king.

Kapchack, wild with desperate courage, was within twenty yards of Choo
Hoo, when the dense column of his own army passed him and crushed into
the demoralised multitude of the enemy, as a tree overthrown by the
wind crushes the bushes beneath it. Kapchack himself whirled round and
round, and borne he knew not whither, scarce recognised whom he struck,
but wreaked his vengeance till his sinews failed him, and he was forced
to hold from sheer weariness. It is not possible to describe the scene
that now took place. The whole plain, the woods, the fields, were hidden
with the hurrying mass of the fugitives, above and mixed with whom the
black and terrible legions dealt destruction.

Widening out as it fled, the host of Choo Hoo was soon scattered over
miles of country. None stayed to aid another; none even asked the other
the best route to a place of safety; all was haste and horror. The
pursuit, indeed, only ended with evening; for seven long hours the
victors sated their thirst for slaughter, and would hardly have stayed
even then had not the disjointed and weary fragments of Choo Hoo's army
found some refuge now in a forest.

Choo Hoo himself only escaped from the ruck by his extraordinary
personal strength; once free from the confused mass, his speed, in which
he surpassed all the barbarians, enabled him to easily avoid capture.
But as he flew his heart was dead within him, for there was no hope of
retrieving this overwhelming disaster.

Meantime King Kapchack, when compelled by sheer physical weariness to
fall out from the pursuit, came down and rested upon an oak. While he
sat there alone and felt his strength returning, the sun began to come
forth again from the shadow, and to light up the land with renewed
brilliance. His attendants, who had now discovered his whereabouts,
crowding round him with their congratulations, seized upon this
circumstance as a fortunate omen. The dark shadow, they said, was past;
like the sun, Kapchack had emerged to shine brighter than before. For
once, indeed, the voice of flattery could not over-estimate the
magnitude of this glorious victory.

It utterly destroyed the invading host, which for years had worked its
way slowly into the land. It destroyed the prestige of Choo Hoo; never
again would his race regard him as