And having taken them up, he sped his chariot away, challenging the
invited kings to a fight.
"The challenged monarchs then all stood up, slapping their arms and biting
their nether lips in wrath. And loud was the din produced, as, in a great
hurry, they began to cast off their ornaments and put on their armour. And
the motion of their ornaments and armour, O Janamejaya, brilliant as these
were, resembled meteoric flashes in the sky. And with brows contracted and
eyes red with rage, the monarchs moved in impatience, their armour and
ornaments dazzling or waving with their agitated steps. The charioteers
soon brought handsome cars with fine horses harnessed thereto. Those
splendid warriors then, equipped with all kinds of weapons, rode on those
cars, and with uplifted weapons pursued the retreating chief of the Kurus.
Then, O Bharata, occurred the terrible encounter between those innumerable
monarchs on one side and the Kuru warrior alone on the other. And the
assembled monarchs threw at their foe ten thousand arrows at the same time.
Bhishma, however speedily checked those numberless arrows before they
could come at him by means of a shower of his own arrows as innumerable as
the down on the body. Then those kings surrounded him from all sides and
rained arrows on him like masses of clouds showering on the mountain-
breast. But Bhishma, arresting with his shafts the course of that arrowy
downpour, pierced each of the monarchs with three shafts.
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