bronze image. The man walked to the parapet on their left and looked
over, and then walked back to the tent and stood irresolutely,
muttering to himself. Squatted under the wall, Dawson found room amid
the race of his disordered thoughts to wonder that he did not
instantly see them.

He was coming towards them, and Dawson felt the bare shoulder that
pressed against his arm shrug slightly. The man was ten paces away,
walking right on to them, and looking to the sky, when, with
throbbing temples and tense lips, Dawson rose, ran at him, and
gripped him. He had the throat in the crutch of his right hand, and
strangled the man's yell as it was conceived. They went down
together, writhing and clutching, Dawson uppermost, the man under him
scratching and slapping at him with open hands. He drew up a knee and
found a lean chest under it, drove it in, and choked his man to
silence and unconsciousness.

"Take this, take this," urged the woman, bending beside him. She
pressed her slender-bladed knife on him. "Just a prick, and he is
quite safe!"

Dawson rose. "No," he said. "He's still enough now. No need to kill
him." He looked at the body and from it to the woman. "Didn't I get
him to rights?" he asked exultantly.

She raised her face to his.

"It was splendid," she said. "With only the bare hands to take an
armed man----"