Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/318

 "Horrible scene," said Kennedy, with profound disgust.

"Wretched creatures," cried Joe. "They only want a uniform now to be like all other soldiers."

"I have a great mind to interfere in the battle," cried Kennedy, brandishing a carbine.

"Not so," replied the doctor; "nothing of the sort. Let us mind our own business. How do you know who is right or wrong, that you should play the part of Providence? Let us get farther away from this repulsive scene. If great generals could only look down as we do upon their fields of battle, they would end, perhaps, in losing their taste for blood and conquest."

The chief of one of the bands of savages was remarkable for his tall form and Herculean strength. With one hand he plunged his lance into the thick masses of his enemies, and with the other he cleared the way with tremendous blows of his hatchet. Presently he cast his gory lance from him, and cast himself upon a wounded man, whose arm he swept off with a blow of his hatchet. He then seized the arm and began to devour it on the spot.

"Ugh! cried Kennedy, "the brute! I can't stand any more." And the warrior, hit by a bullet in the forehead, fell dead on his back.

At his fall, a profound terror seized his band. This supernatural death served to reanimate the ardor of their adversaries, and in a moment the battle-field was abandoned by half the combatants.

"Let us seek a higher current to take us along," said the doctor, "I am sick of this."

But they could not get away so quickly, but that they could perceive the victorious tribe seize upon the dead and wounded, and fight over the still warm flesh, and devour it eagerly. "Pugh," said Joe, "that is sickening."

The "Victoria" rose. The shouts of the frenzied crowd followed them for some moments, but at length, impelled towards the south, they escaped from this scene of carnage and cannibalism.

The country appeared undulating with several watercourses, which ran towards the east, and fell doubtless into the affluents of the lake Nu, or of the River of Gazelles, respecting which M. Lejean has given some curious details. When night fell the "Victoria" dropped anchor in