sideways the knife was twisted right out of my hand.

Then it was that the two others sprang upon me. I saw them coming, and
got an arm round the waist of each, and down we all fell upon the floor
of the cave together, rolling over and over. They were strong men, but
I was mad with rage, and that awful lust for slaughter which will creep
into the hearts of the most civilised of us when blows are flying, and
life and death tremble on the turn. My arms were round the two swarthy
demons, and I hugged them till I heard their ribs crack and crunch up
beneath my grip. They twisted and writhed like snakes, and clawed and
battered at me with their fists, but I held on. Lying on my back there,
so that their bodies might protect me from spear thrusts from above, I
slowly crushed the life out of them, and as I did so, strange as it may
seem, I thought of what the amiable Head of my College at Cambridge (who
is a member of the Peace Society) and my brother Fellows would say if by
clairvoyance they could see me, of all men, playing such a bloody game.
Soon my assailants grew faint, and almost ceased to struggle, their
breath had failed them, and they were dying, but still I dared not leave
them, for they died very slowly. I knew that if I relaxed my grip they
would revive. The other ruffians probably thought--for we were all three
lying in the shadow of the ledge--that we were all dead together, at any
rate they did not interfere with our little tragedy.

I turned my head, and as I lay gasping in the throes of that awful
struggle I could see that Leo was off the rock now, for the lamplight
fell full upon him. He was still on his feet, but in the centre of a
surging mass of struggling men, who were striving to pull him down as
wolves pull down a stag. Up above them towered his beautiful pale face
crowned with its bright curls (for Leo is six feet two high), and I saw
that he was fighting with a desperate abandonment and energy that was