At last Ilo, recovering from his wound, but not his rage, rushed again to the field, (impelled also by Sosee), and, seeing the advance of Pounder, which drove the Apes before him, met him with a stone, (which reaches further than an ape’s arm). Forth into the air, like Iris from the command of Jove, rushed this messenger of wrath, and, singing a battle cry as it went, it struck Pounder in the breast; when out went his breath and up went his feet—but only for awhile. Pounder arose again, but, being unable to fight, was carried back by his comrades; and again the fight went on without him, to his great disappointment.
The Apes, encouraged by the arrest of the flood of death, now returned to the field, and everywhere were single fights. Stones, cocoanuts, gourds and bones flew through the air. Cries and groans mingled with growls, and which was man and which was monkey could not be discerned in the battle.
Finger-at-his-nose, an ape from the shores lying to the south, where his ancestors fished for crabs with their tails, and made mighty grimaces while waiting for a bite, scraped the face of Stretch-mouth with a shell, and was put to flight with a club in hands of Abroo; and, as he ran a shower of stones followed him, and he thought the crabs of all the Swamp were pulling at him.
Then High-climber, who was quick to look around and unfriendly to mosquitos, advanced from among the Apes with a cocoanut in his hand. This cocoanut he had pulled in a dense grove at sunset and hid at the foot of a palm, where a buzzard was feeding on an aurochs. The buzzard dug it up and carried it to a mountain crag, where Imko, finding it, brought it to the camp of the Lali. There High-climber, seeing it, again took possession of it and slew Imko the supposed thief. With this cocoanut, High-climber, aiming at the head of Frog-catcher, struck him where the nose separates the eyes, like the mountains of Caucasus between two great seas. Frog-catcher fell and one less Ammi was left to propagate the new race.
Then Watch-the-Girls, furious with rage, rushed forth, and, with a sharp stone and loud shout, mixed in the fight. Ape after ape fell before her, wounded or scared. Like a she-wolf tearing the fold she ran about dealing destruction, while the timid flock fled on all sides, or gathered in groups too frightened to flee. One, Bushy-face thought to resist her, and, turning, aimed a dart at her bright eye. But, too dazzled or too terrified to aim, he missed his mark, when, from the same eye, she sent a dart of defiance and from her hand a stone. Both struck the eye which aimed the first blow, and back went retribution on the wrong intended. Down sank Bushy-face in darkness, and away went all things from his view. To the world the monkey was no more, and to the monkey the world was no more; and which was destroyed has never been settled between them.
Then off in the distance was heard a great chorus of screams, while a rush of all the Apes to that quarter drew the battle with it. The girls, who had been led to the war by Watch-the-Girls, then thought to enter the fight. They had been restrained by their leader; but now, impetuous, they rushed against the enemy; whom seeing, the salacious Apes, enamoured of the daughters of Men, and forgetting their anger in their lust, gave up the battle for a rape, and rushed upon the girls to make them prisoners. The girls, scorning to be carried away instead of attacked, (having come to fight and not to be wooed), struggled hard with their captors, but more from pride than desire.
Then all the Ammi, seeing that their girls were about to be taken, transferred the war to that quarter, and fought for their own, instead of against the enemy. Inspired by jealousy as well as rage, the battle now waxed fiercer, as when to a raging fire is added the wind, and the conflagration spreads into a forest. Death moved about rapidly over the field, visiting now a man and now an ape, and calling him to the Walhalla beyond the Swamp; and the plain was scattered with his victims.