THE FIGHT. 47 



with dead and dying. Sulphureous fumes exhale around. 

 Single combatants by thousands, each so eager in their re- 

 spective contests as to seem unconscious of all besides, have 

 spent their ammunition ; but with rancour undiminished, behold 

 them now, limb to limb, head to head, seized by each other 

 and held in savage grip now wrestling upright, now rolling 

 in the dust ; long does the dubious strife continue, till a third, 

 Rufian or Fuscan, comes to turn the balance and throw 

 death into the ascending scale. In another quarter, see perhaps 

 a dozen combatants of either party, all firmly linked together 

 in a living chain, dashing, writhing like a wounded snake in 

 serpentine convulsions, till snap goes a link beneath a mortal 

 blow ; but in an instant the dissevered portions reunite, and 

 struggle on with double fury. 



Look now at that powerful long-limbed Rufian and the active 

 little Fuscan, her opponent : the latter springs like a cat o' 

 mountain on the chest of her bulkier foe ; but dearly does she 

 pay for her temerity. Caught in the grasp of the Amazonian 

 Ajax, she is crushed and falls strangled to the earth. She 

 falls but let not her conqueror exult a sister heroine, no 

 bigger than herself, and like herself, carrying in a little body 

 a mighty mind, beholds and vows to avenge her fate. She 

 too springs upon the Rufian, but with more effective grasp, 

 her powerful jaws enclosing, as in a vice, one limb of her 

 athletic antagonist. The Rufian severs in twain the body of 

 her assailant ; its lower half falls and is trampled in the dust ; 

 but (horrible to see !) the upper portion still retains its hold, 

 supported by the jaws which death has double-locked. The 

 fixed eyes continue to look up angrily into the living face, the 

 rigid arms to encircle the warm body of the wounded Rufian. 

 Vainly she strives to shake off the hideous burthen : like the 

 old Man of the Mountain, it will not be dislodged ; and though 

 the Amazon of Rufia left that battle-field, yet 



" ever more 



The lady wore," 



