n the air in various
attitudes of repose.

In company with Generals Hushnoly, Ladalmir, Gerolio, Zooly-Soase,
Thoubool, Charka, Yermoul, Starbottle and Goldrock, I visited the
scene of the battle.

How ghastly the realities of war! There floated irregular piles of
dead and wounded bodies, from which poured many a trickling stream of
ruddy life, which formed immense cloud-pools of blood surrounding each
ghastly pile. The heaped-up masses of the dead would vibrate, as some
poor suffocating wretch struggled in his last agonies. Dr. Merryferry
and his assistants hastily took possession of the wounded, and
ministered to their necessities. Water was supplied them from the
leathern bags of water that formed part of the commissariat supplies.

I ordered a detachment of wayleals to separate the living from the
dead, and bear the wounded to Kioram for immediate attention.

The saddest sight of all was a cluster of fifty beautiful priestesses,
embracing one another in the long caress of death. They had been slain
with the magnic spears, so happily there were no gaping wounds from
which the life-blood flowed. Ardsolus and Merga lay dead where the
fight was hottest, both slain at once.

The dead and wounded twin-souls were sent to Egyplosis as quickly as
possible, and the process of clearing the air of the havoc of war was
carried out both by the enemy and ourselves with the greatest
despatch.

The losses of the enemy were four times greater than ours, owing to
the tremendous execution done by our gigantic pistols. The royal
troops presented in ghastly groups every possible posture of the human
body that could be created by rage, pain, fear or madness.

How I wished some eloquent historian could have floated through that
abyss of horror on distended wings, and, pen in hand, describe its
dramatic desolation and terror. Clouds of vultures and the seemorgh
were devouring the dead bodies, and, as they fought for choice
morsels, flapped their wings in pools of gore. Many of the combatants,
including some of my own sailors, were drowned in globes of blood.

CHAPTER LIII.

VICTORY.

The wayleals rested and slept outstretched upon the air close to the
scene of battle. Not having any weight as regarded external objects,
they mutually attracted each other, and to obtain freedom and rest
without being crushed together into suffocating masses of men, they
were formed into companies of one hundred each, with their feet
pres