Now they had reached us and there began the most terrible battle that
was told of in the history of that land. Wave after wave of them rolled
up against us, but our battalions which I had not trained in vain stood
like rocks and slew and slew and slew till the dead could be counted by
the thousand. Again and again they strove to storm the hill on which I
stood, hoping to kill me, and each time we beat them back. Picking out
their generals I loosed shaft after shaft from my long bow, and seldom
did I miss, nor could their cotton-quilted armour turn those bitter
arrows.
"_The shafts of the god! The shafts of the god!_" they cried, and shrank
back from before me.
There appeared a man with a yellow fillet on his head and a robe that
was studded with precious stones; a huge man with great limbs and
flaming eyes; a loose-mouthed, hideous man who wielded a big axe of
copper and carried a bow longer than any I had seen in that land.
Hooking the axe to his belt, he set an arrow on the bow and let drive at
me. It sped true and struck me full upon the breast, only to shatter on
the good French mail, which copper could not pierce.
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