Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/142

76 never before witnessed so tremendous a shock. The brave Toobó Nuha, inspired by the greatness of his cause, with a resistless arm performed prodigies of valour: when he stood, he stood like a rock —when he rushed, it was with the impetuosity of a hurricane: he raised his ponderous club only to give death his victim; and as he moved forward he strode over the bodies of fallen chiefs. In another part of the battle, Tooi Hala Fatai was seen moving onward in the path of victory; though he felt his strength gradually decreasing, yet the terror of his fiery eye paralysed the arms of his enemies; at length, fearful lest too speedy a conquest might deprive him of the opportunity of dying a warrior's death, he rushed with an exulting spirit into the thickest of the battle, and fell, pierced with spears, beneath the clubs of his adversaries. In the mean while, Finow was not an idle looker on: he fought with equal courage, but with a more steady and less presumptuous bravery; the greatest of his enemies fell beneath the weight of his club; and as his eye sated itself with the number of his opponents whom death had stretched upon the reeking plain, his ambitious mind, confident in victory, seemed already