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The furious Intorachit has snatched his mighty bow stave from the wall and attempts to smash his assailants, but he is so stiff from his long vigil that it is as much as he can do to get clear of the monkeys and scramble aboard his lion chariot. In it he swirls to a commanding position above the shock party, and prepares to make the monkeys and their human leader regret their temerity. He selects his deadly Witsanu-Panam shaft, fits it to his bow and lets it loose. It rushes down on the monkeys with a fearful roar, but Phra Lak quickly counters by firing his no less powerful Akaniwat arrow. It hisses upwards, smashes the demon's arrow to fragments and then turning in flight, buries itself with tremendous force in Intorachit's breast. Over goes the demon's chariot, and Intorachit, badly wounded, is thrown to earth. Hidden by the thickets of bamboo, he has time to cut the shaft out of his wound and, while the hullaballoo of the monkey hunt draws nearer, decide quickly what he must do. Severely weakened by his wound, and hardly less so by the privations of the last days, Intorachit realizes that neither the time nor the place of this fight are to his advantage. Swearing that he will be revenged on his assailants at a later date, he hurls his discus into the air and, under cover of the violent storm that immediately breaks out, makes good his escape. Well satisfied with the outcome of the expedition, Phra Lak calls together the elements of his troop and leads it back to the monkey camp. |
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