Between bold headlands of rock and under a gray cloud-blown sky, a dozen boats, long and lean and dark, beaked like monstrous birds, were landing on a foam-whitened beach of sand.

The men in the boats, half naked, huge-muscled and fair-haired, wore winged helmets.

In their hands were swords and spears, and they were leaping, waist-deep, into the sea-wash and wading ashore.

Opposed to them, contesting the landing, were skin-clad savages, unlike Indians, however, who clustered on the beach or waded into the water to their knees.

The first blows were being struck, and here and there the bodies of the dead and wounded rolled in the surf.