“It is better to let them go,” said Koree, who picked up the clubs and missiles which they had scattered; “we ought to be glad to be rid of them.”
For some of the Ammi had been trampled to death in the stampede, so that this incursion of cattle upon them was nearly as destructive as the war.
After the herds had gone by, they were seen to spread out over the plains in the direction from which the Ammi had come to the seat of war. There they found grass and were leisurely grazing.
“It looks,” said Abroo, “as if they had come to stay, so that when we return from the war they will dispute the possession of Cocoanut Hill with us.”
The snow, however, continued to fall, which, like the curse of the wandering Jew, was to give the fugitives no rest.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Meanwhile the Lali who had been worsted in the war, and whose defeat even the gallant Oboo could not avert, determined on a change of tactics. Recognizing their inferiority as combatants (being not so generally armed or so skilled in the use of arms as the Ammi), they resolved to make up in numbers what they lacked in skill; and so they sent out ambassadors and summoned all the apes from the countries beyond, shrewdly using the respite of the last few days from battle to collect allies.