"Have you got him?"
"I don't know. He's still. Strike a light, if you please...."
Dan'l was already half way down the ladder; but even before his sulphur match scratched, Brander's nostrils told him what had happened. They brought him a smell.... Unmistakable.... Appalling.... The smell of blood....
He was on his knees beside Slatter's body when Dan'l bent over him with the flickering match. They saw Slatter doubled forward over his own legs, and Brander explained swiftly: "I had a full-Nelson.... I was forcing him over that way when he yelled...."
He lifted Slatter's body; and they saw the hilt of a knife that was stuck downward, deep into his right thigh. Dan'l cried:
"You've killed him."
And one-eyed Mauger interrupted loyally: "No, he didn't. Didn't...."
Dan'l looked at the one-eyed man. "How do you know?"
"I did. I stuck the knife in him...."
Brander looked at Mauger, and he touched the little man's shoulder. "You're a liar, little friend," he said, and smiled. And he turned to Dan'l. "I bit the knife out of his hand," he said. "Out of Slatter's.... It fell against my chest and slid down.... It must have dropped between his body and his legs, and his own body, bending forward, drove it in."