up in the entrance of one of the caverns against the shafts of a wagon.
Then suddenly he changed his tactics. Realizing at last that a
clumsily-wielded bludgeon is powerless against a stick expertly handled
rapier-wise, he dropped his club, and the next moment the moonbeams
flashed from the broad blade of a knife. This was quite a different
affair. He now stood on guard with the knife poised and his left hand
outspread ready to snatch at my stick. It was a much more effective
plan; only he did not know that inside my stout malacca reposed a keen
Toledo sword-blade.

"I slipped my thumb on the press-button of the sword-stick and watched
him. From time to time he made a dash at me with his knife, and when I
prodded him back, he snatched at the stick. Again and again he nearly
caught it, but I was just a little too quick for him, and he fell back,
gasping and cursing, on the wagon-shafts. And then the end came with
inevitable suddenness. He rushed out on me with upraised knife. I
stopped him with a vigorous poke in the chest; but before I could whisk
away the stick he had clutched it with a howl of joy. I gave a final
drive, pressed the button and sprang back, leaving the scabbard-end in
his hand. Before he had realized what had happened, he darted out,
brandishing the knife, and came fairly on the point of the sword-blade.
At the same moment I must have lunged, though I was not aware of it,
for when he staggered back the handle was against his breast.

"It was over, and I had hardly realized that the final stage had begun.
In an instant, as it seemed, that yelping, murderous wretch had subsided
into a huddled, inert heap. It was a quick and merciful dispatch. By the
time I had cleaned the blade and replaced it in its scabbard, the last
twitchings had ceased. As I stood and looked down at him, I felt
something of the chill of an anticlimax. It had all gone off so easily.