I ordered a detachment of wayleals to separate the living from the dead, and bear the wounded to Kioram for immediate attention.
The saddest sight of all was a cluster of fifty beautiful priestesses, embracing one another in the long caress of death. They had been slain with the magnic spears, so happily there were no gaping wounds from which the life-blood flowed. Ardsolus and Merga lay dead where the fight was hottest, both slain at once.
The dead and wounded twin-souls were sent to Egyplosis as quickly as possible, and the process of clearing the air of the havoc of war was carried out both by the enemy and ourselves with the greatest despatch.
The losses of the enemy were four times greater than ours, owing to the tremendous execution done by our gigantic pistols. The royal troops presented in ghastly groups every possible posture of the human body that could be created by rage, pain, fear or madness.
How I wished some eloquent historian could have floated through that abyss of horror on distended wings, and, pen in hand, describe its dramatic desolation and terror. Clouds of vultures and the seemorgh were devouring the dead bodies, and, as they fought for choice morsels, flapped their wings in pools of gore. Many of the combatants, including some of my own sailors, were drowned in globes of blood.
CHAPTER LIII.
VICTORY.
The wayleals rested and slept outstretched upon the air close to the scene of battle. Not having any weight as regarded external objects, they mutually attracted each other, and to obtain freedom and rest without being crushed together into suffocating masses of men, they were formed into companies of one hundred each, with their feet pressing against solid cylinders of spears. Mutual gravity was sufficient to hold them together, and each wayleal spread himself upon the air, as upon a bed of down, enjoying luxurious repose.