The Umbaddu plunged to the attack
Blending with that tumult, and almost drowning it out, there sounded the exultant shrieks and howls of the marauders. Hooting and wailing in a din as of charging demons, the Umbaddu plunged to the attack. Straight toward the camp-fire they rushed in a roaring mob, while their clubs, wildly swinging, dashed out the brains of many a startled foe. Then, fiendishly yelling with the joy of triumph, they started pell-mell toward the shadows behind the fire, where the surging figures were gathering in a turbulent swarm.
Now all was blurred amid the confusion of battle. One could have seen little more than a jumble of tempestuously swaying forms; one could have heard little more than an uproar as of fighting beasts. In that deafening racket, one might have distinguished at times the crash of club on club, at times the groans and whines of the wounded, the sighs and moanings of the dying; one might have made out growls and snarls of challenge, snortings of defiance, squeals and bawlings of terror, bellowings and thunders of rage; but one could not have told whether defenders or assailants clamored the louder, or which was defender and which assailant amid that phantasmagoria of stormy, furiously swaying shadows.
In darkness the battle was fought out—in darkness or semidarkness, for the fire cast a weird, variable half-light upon the nearer contestants, showing here two writhing figures clasped in a smothering grip, and there two stooping forms confronting one another watchfully with lifted clubs; while beyond, where even the half-light could not penetrate and utter blackness began, the hissing and muttering and screeching and shrieking of savage-voiced combatants gave proof of a contest that no eye could see.
As the conflict proceeded, and the noise and confusion grew and grew, the fire, untended, sank constantly lower and lower; the pale rim of the light constantly narrowed; and the moon, sliding behind a cloud, threatened to leave the scene in total gloom.
It was at about this point that the battle took a decisive turn. One of the fighters, on an impulse that no one ever explained, snatched a burning brand from the still-glowing fire; and wielding the flaming weapon, went dashing headlong toward the enemy. All, both friend and foe, gaped in terror and fled before this fire-swinging apparition; and for a few minutes he darted unchallenged wherever he would, while at his approach great shaggy forms went crashing right and left into the brush. Then, when the brand had burned low, the bold one thrust the still-flaming remains into the shrubbery, and went slouching away in search of other weapons.
Without knowing it, he had made the end imminent. Through his unwitting intervention, the culmination was to be sudden beyond all expectations.