38. The army appeared as a sea, and their march was as the whirling of an eddy with its gurgling sound; and the bloodshed on their bodies, exhibited the roseate hue of the evening sky. 39. The waving weapons, appeared as a lowering cloud moving upon the shore; and the ground besmeared in blood seemed as the fragment of a purple cloud. 40. The lancers, mace bearers and spearmen, seemed to bear the tall _tala_ trees in their hands; while the cowardly crowds of men, were seen to cry aloud like the timid deer in the plain. 41. The dead bodies of horses, elephants and warriors, lay prostrate on the ground liken the fallen leaves of trees; and the rotten flesh and fat of the bruised carcasses, were trodden down to mud and mire in the field. 42. Their bones were pounded to dust under the hoofs of the horses; and the concussion of wood and stones under the driving winds, raised a rattling sound all around. 43. The clouds of dooms-day were roaring, and the winds of desolation were blowing; the rains of the last day were falling, and the thunders of destruction were clapping all about. 44. The surface of the ground was all muddy and miry, and the face of the land was flooded all over; the air was chill and bleak, and the sky was drizzling through all its pores. 45. The huts and hamlets, and the towns and villages, were all in a blaze; and the people and their cattle, with all the horses and elephants, were in full cry and loud uproar. 46. The earth and heaven, resounded with the rolling of chariots and rumbling of clouds; and the four quarters of heaven, reverberated to the twanging of his four fold bow on all the four sides. 47. The forky lightnings were playing, by the friction and clashing of the clouds; and showers of arrows and missiles fell profusely from them, with the thunder bolts of maces, and darts of spears. 48. The armies of the invading chiefs, fled in confusion from all the four sides of the field; and the flying forces fell in numbers like swarms of ants and troops of gnats and flies. 49. The myrmidons of the bordering tribes, were burnt amidst the conflagration of fiery arms; and were pierced by the fiery weapons, falling like thunderbolts upon them, from the darkened sky. The flying forces resembled the marine animals of the deep, which being disturbed by the perturbed waters of the sea, plunge at last into the submarine fire. CHAPTER CXII. FLIGHT OF THE FOREIGN FOES. Argument.--Account of the routed soldiers, and the names of their countries and places of retreat. Vasishtha continued:--The Chedis of Deccan, who were as thickly crowded as the sandal wood of their country, and girt with girdles resembling the snakes about those trees, were felled by the battle axes, and driven afar to the southern main--the Indian Ocean. 2. The Persians flew as the flying leaves of trees, and striking against one another in their madness, fell like the vanjula leaves in the forest.