y
flash of ensanguined spear-points, hurtling knobkerries and whirling
war-clubs, upthrown arms, clenched fists, reeling bodies, the shout of
triumph and the short, quick gasp that followed the home-thrust of the
stabbing spear. This was the kind of thing that marked the end of each
day's fight when, the stock of the Izreelites, arrows being exhausted,
it became necessary at last to evacuate a stubbornly held position and
to retire before the overwhelming hordes of savages that, despite the
frightful losses sustained by them in the course of each day's fighting,
seemed daily to increase in numbers as the encircling cloud of them
contracted with the daily retirement of the defenders towards the lake.

As for Dick, he seemed to bear a charmed life; for although he
fearlessly exposed himself, day after day, wherever the fighting
happened to be fiercest and most stubborn, he had thus far received no
hurt more serious than a mere scratch or two, and a rather severe
contusion from the blow of a knobkerrie that had all but unhorsed him;
but this immunity may have been due, at least in part, to the fact that
Mafuta was always unobtrusively close at hand, ready to guard his
beloved young master, ay, and even to lay down his life for him, if
necessary.

Those were strenuous days indeed for all concerned, and especially for
the defenders; for the fighting usually began with the dawn, and
continued all through the day as long as there was light enough to
distinguish friend from foe; while, so far as the Izreelites were
concerned, they were obliged to maintain a watch all through the hours
of darkness, in order to be prepared for the surprise night attacks
which the savages sprang upon them from time to time, with the obvious
purpose of exhausting the defenders' strength.

But while Mokatto and the other savage kings who had thrown in their lot
with him for the purpose of "eating up" the Izreelites, and partitioning
their country, were solacing themselves with the assurance that, despite
their frightful daily losses in men, they were winning all along the
line, Dick was artfully drawing them after him into the heart of the
chain of mountains that encircled the lake and the island city of
Bethalia. These mountains, or hills rather--for they were scarcely
lofty enough to be worthy of the more imposing appellation--were of an
exceptionally rugged and precipitous character, to such an extent,
indeed, that they were absolutely impas