e battle.

The ape leaped out, and when he saw the powerful hero with the
three-tined sword standing before him he asked: "And who may you be?"

The other said: "I am Yang Oerlang, the grandson of the Lord of the
Heavens!"

Then the ape laughed and said: "Oh yes, I remember! His daughter ran
away with a certain Sir Yang, to whom heaven gave a son. You must be
that son!"

Yang Oerlang grew furious, and advanced upon him with his spear. Then
a hot battle began. For three hundred rounds they fought without
decisive results. Then Yang Oerlang turned himself into a giant with a
black face and red hair.

"Not bad," said the ape, "but I can do that too!"

So they continued to fight in that form. But the ape's baboons were
much frightened. The beast and planet spirits of Yang Oerlang pressed
the apes hard. They slew most of them and the others hid away. When
the ape saw this his heart grew uneasy. He drew the magic
giant-likeness in again, took his rod and fled. But Yang Oerlang
followed hard on his heels. In his urgent need the ape thrust the rod,
which he had turned into a needle, into his ear, turned into a
sparrow, and flew up into the crest of a tree. Yang Oerlang who was
following in his tracks, suddenly lost sight of him. But his keen eyes
soon recognized that he had turned himself into a sparrow. So he flung
away spear and crossbow, turned himself into a sparrow-hawk, and
darted down on the sparrow. But the latter soared high into the air as
a cormorant. Yang Oerlang shook his plumage, turned into a great
sea-crane, and shot up into the clouds to seize the cormorant. The
latter dropped, flew into a valley and dove beneath the waters of a
brook in the guise of a fish. When Yang Oerlang reached the edge of
the valley, and had lost his trail he said to himself: "This ape has
surely turned himself into a fish or a crab! I will change my form as
well in order to catch him." So he turned into a fish-hawk and floated
above the surface of the water. When the ape in the water caught sight
of the fish-hawk, he saw that he was Yang Oerlang. He swiftly swung
around and fled, Yang Oerlang in pursuit. When the latter was no
further away than the length of a beak, the ape turned, crept ashore
as a water-snake and hid in the grass. Yang Oerlang, when he saw the
water-snake creep from the water, turned into an eagle and spread his
claws to seize the snake. But the water-snake sprang up and turned
into the lowest of all birds, a