With one hand he plunged his
spear into the compact ranks of his enemies, and with the
other mowed large spaces in them with his battle-axe.
Suddenly he flung away his war-club, red with blood,
rushed upon a wounded warrior, and, chopping off his arm
at a single stroke, carried the dissevered member to his
mouth, and bit it again and again.
"Ah!" ejaculated Kennedy, "the horrible brute! I
can hold back no longer," and, as he spoke, the huge
savage, struck full in the forehead with a rifle-ball, fell
headlong to the ground.
Upon this sudden mishap of their leader, his warriors
seemed struck dumb with amazement; his supernatural
death awed them, while it reanimated the courage and
ardor of their adversaries, and, in a twinkling, the field
was abandoned by half the combatants.
"Come, let us look higher up for a current to bear us
away. I am sick of this spectacle," said the doctor.
But they could not get away so rapidly as to avoid
the sight of the victorious tribe rushing upon the dead
and the wounded, scrambling and disputing for the still
warm and reeking flesh, and eagerly devouring it.
"Faugh!" uttered Joe, "it's sickening."
The balloon rose as it expanded; the howlings of the
brutal horde, in the delirium of their orgy, pursued them
for a few minutes; but, at length, borne away toward the
south, they were carried out of sight and hearing of this
horrible spectacle of cannibalism.
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