Tobolaka, naked save for his skin robe and his anklets of feathers, danced the dance of quick killing, and the paddlers of the royal canoe were publicly executed—with elaborate attention to detail.
In the dark hours before the dawn the Isisi went out against the Ochori. At the first flash of daylight they landed, twelve thousand strong, in Ochori territory. Bosambo was strongly placed, and his chosen regiments fell on the Isisi right and crumpled it up. Then he turned sharply and struck into the Isisi main body. It was a desperate venture, but it succeeded. Raging like a veritable devil, Tobolaka sought to rally his personal guard, but the men of the Isisi city who formed it had no heart for the business. They broke back to the river.
Whirling his long-handed axe (he had been a famous club swinger in the Philadelphia seminary), Tobolaka cut a way into the heart of the Ochori vanguard.
"Ho, Bosambo!" he called, and his voice was thick with hate. "You have stolen my wife; first I will take your head, then I will kill Sandi, your master."
Bosambo's answer was short, to the point, and in English:
"Dam nigger!" he said.
It needed but this. With a yelp like the howl of a wolf, Tobolaka, B.A., sprang at him, his axe swirling.
But Bosambo moved as only a Krooman can move.
There was the flash of a brown body, the thud of an impact, and Tobolaka was down with a steel grip at his throat and a knee like a battering-ram in his stomach.
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