I had been carrying aimlessly, slipped from my nerveless hand to the
moss on which I kneeled.

That sudden shock cleared my wits. I was at his mercy, and he knew it.
I could see every detail of him twenty yards off across the water. He
stood there as calm and light as if he had just arisen from rest, his
polished limbs shining in the glow of the sun, the muscles on his right
arm rippling as he moved his bow. Madman that I was, ever to hope to
contend with such dauntless youth, such tireless vigour! There was a
cruel, thin-lipped smile on his face. He had me in his clutches like a
cat with a mouse, and he was going to get the full zest of it. I
kneeled before him, with my strength gone, my right arm crippled. He
could choose his target at his leisure, for I could not resist. I saw
the gloating joy in his eyes. He knew his power, and meant to miss
nothing of its savour.

Yet in that fell predicament God gave me back my courage. But I took a
queer way of showing it. I began to whimper as if in abject fear. Every
limb was relaxed in terror, and I grovelled on my knees before him. I
made feeble plucks at the arrow in my right arm, and my shoulder
drooped almost to the sod. But all the time my other hand was behind my
back, edging its way to the pistol. My fingers clutched at the butt,
and slowly I began to withdraw it till I had it safe in the shadow of
my pocket.

My enemy did not know that I was left-handed.

He fitted a second arrow to his bow, while his lips curved maliciously.
All the demoniac, pantherlike cruelty of his race looked at me out of
his deep eyes. He was taking his time about it, unwilling to lose the