Cao Cao hastened toward the shore. Huang Gai, with a few troops at his back, leaped into a small boat, dashed through the fire, and sought Cao Cao. Cao Cao, seeing the imminence of the danger, was making for the land; Zhang Liao got hold of a small boat into which he helped his master; none too soon, for the ship was burning. They got Cao Cao out of the thick of the fire and dashed for the bank.

Huang Gai, seeing a handsomely robed person get into a small boat, guessed it must be Cao Cao and pursued. He drew very near and he held his keen blade ready to strike, crying out, “You rebel! Do not flee. I am Huang Gai.”

Cao Cao howled in the bitterness of his distress. Zhang Liao fitted an arrow to his bow and aimed at the pursuer, shooting at short range. The roaring of the gale and the flames kept Huang Gai from hearing the twang of the string, and he was wounded in the shoulder. He fell and rolled over into the water.

He fell in peril of water

When flames were high;

Ere cudgel bruises had faded,

An arrow struck.

Huang Gai's fate will be told in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 50. Zhuge Liang Foresees The Huarong Valley Episode; Guan Yu Lifts His Saber To Release Cao Cao.

The last chapter closed with Huang Gai in the water wounded, Cao Cao rescued from immediate danger, and confusion rampant among the soldiers. Pressing forward to attack the naval camp, Han Dang was told by his soldiers that some one was clinging to the rudder of his boat and shouting to him by his familiar name. Han Dang listened carefully and in the voice at once he recognized that Huang Gai was calling to him for help.

“That is my friend Huang Gai!” cried he, and they quickly pulled the wounded leader out of the water.

Then they saw Huang Gai was wounded for the arrow still stuck. Han Dang bit out the shaft of the arrow but the point was deeply buried in the flesh. They hastily pulled off his wet garments and cut out the metal arrowhead with a dagger, tore up one of the flags, and bound up the wound. Then Han Dang gave Huang Gai his own fighting robe to put on and sent him off in a small boat back to camp.

Huang Gai's escape from drowning must be taken as proof of his natural affinity for, or sympathy with, water. Although it was the period of great cold and he was heavy with armor when he fell into the river, yet he escaped with life.

In this great battle at the junction of the three rivers, the Three Gorges, when fire seemed to spread wide over all the wide surface of the water, when the earth quaked with the roar of battle, when land forces closed in on both wings and four battle squadrons advanced on the front, when the ferocity of fire answered the clash of weapons and weapons were aided by fire, under the thrusts of spears and the flights of arrows, burnt by fire and drowned by water, Cao Cao lost an incalculable number of troops. And a poet wrote:

When Wei and Wu together strove

For the mastery,

In the Red Cliffs fight the towering ships

Vanished from the sea,

For there the fierce flames, leaping high.

Burned them utterly.

So Zhou Yu for his liege lord

Got the victory.

And another poem runs:

The hills are high, the moon shines faint.

The waters stretch afar;

I sigh to think how oft this land

Has suffered stress of war;

And I recall how southerners

Shrank from the northern army's might,

And how a favoring eastern gale

Helped them to win the fight.

While fire was consuming the naval base of Cao Cao, Gan Ning made Cai Zhong guide him into the innermost recesses of Cao Cao's camp. Then Gan Ning slew Cai Zhong with one slash of his sword. After this Gan Ning set fire to the jungle; and at this signal, Lu Meng put fire to the grass in ten places near to each other. Then other fires were started, and the noise of battle was on all sides.

Cao Cao and Zhang Liao, with a small party of horsemen, fled through the burning forest. They could see no road in front; all seemed on fire. Presently Mao Jie and Wen Ping, with a few more horsemen, joined them. Cao Cao bade the soldiers seek a way through.

Zhang Liao pointed out, saying, “The only suitable road is through the Black Forest.”

And they took it.

They had gone but a short distance when they were overtaken by a small party of the enemy, and a voice cried, “Cao Cao, stop!”