Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/217

 THE MAGIC SWOBD. 193 he suddenly heard a wailing sound over his head^ and, looking up, he saw the Bird of Woe, which dropped an arrow as it passed On picking it up he found on the arrow four characters, Jv/a^ gwcm, tien, d8U, indicating the emperor ; and thus.he was made aware that the emperor was himself on the mountain. He, therefore, urged on his army at its quickest, and surrounded the mountain. The emperor was in terrible straits. One after another of his best generals was slain by Gaisoowun. The sceptical Qwoyuen, himself a lieutenant-general, went out to single combat, but was slain. Twenty-six of his friends, of equal rank, were ashamed to leave his death unavenged, and therefore went out Some before, some behind, some at each side, — ^many of ihem wounded ; but Gaisoowun sat in their midst unhurt He saw they were too much for him, however, and took out his three-inch flying sword. Mr Hii saw it, and called out, ''Ketirei retire! that's the sword which devours life!" They had the utmost confidence in Mr Hii's wisdom, and, therefore, began to retreat up the hill, — ^but not a man of them entered the extemporised camp alivel The greatest consternation prevailed in the imperial camp, many of whose general officers, and a large proportion of whose men, had abready fallen. At last Tingwei was thought of as the sole hope, for Gaisoowun had already said that the emperor's only safety was in acknowledging the Gaoli king as his master. The son-in-law of the emperor was, therefore, commissioned to go to Hanmachung, and summon the army there to raise the siege. He had to ride and fight through seven lines of the enemy ; and he carried away seven arrows in his body, two in his legs, two in his shoulders, which he did not consider painful ; but one had sunk deeply into his back, where he could not reach his hand to pull it out With some difficulty he got to the city, delivered his message, and fell down dead. An army of 100,000 men started immediately to deliver his majesty; and under advice of Yingwei, the camp was made with six empty for every four occupied tents, to make them appear more numerous. After a description of the armour in which the heroes were N