In this battle some were killed, but the most of the slaves threw down
their arms and went over to Ithobal, who spared them, together with
their wives and children.
Through all the night that followed, the generals of Zimboe made ready
for the onslaught which must come. Everywhere within the circuit of the
inner wall troops were stationed, while the double southern gateway,
where prince Aziel was the captain in command, was built up with loose
blocks of stone.
A while before the dawn, just as the eastern sky grew grey, Aziel,
watching from his post above the gate of the wall, heard the fierce
war-song of the Tribes swell suddenly from fifty thousand throats and
the measured tramp of their innumerable feet. Then the day broke, and he
saw them advancing in three armies towards the three points chosen for
attack, the largest of the armies, headed by Ithobal the king, directing
its march upon the walled gate of which he was in command.
It was a wondrous and a fearful sight, that of these hordes of plumed
warriors, their broad spears flashing in the sunrise, and their fierce
faces alight with hereditary hate and the lust of slaughter. Never had
Aziel seen such a spectacle, nor could he look upon it without dreading
the issue of the war, for if they were savages, these foes were brave as
the lions of their own plains, and had sworn by the head of their king
to drag down the sheltering walls of Zimboe with their naked hands, or
die to the last man.
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