He whirled round quickly and suddenly. Just as he had thought. In the flash, lighting up the whole plateau, something dropped; disappeared behind a flat boulder not fifty yards away, and in that flash the man on the mountain top realised that he had to do with a human being. In which case every instinct of self-preservation cried out loudly that the other must not leave the mountain top alive.
There was something cat-like in his movement as with incredible speed and agility he made straight for the spot. Something sang past his head. It was not the breeze—now sweeping the tableland in fitful puffs. It was something which he heard strike the stones behind him with a steely ring. Then he had grappled with the figure behind the rock.
It rose, to fully his own height. Something else that was steely gleamed in his eyes—a broad, formidable blade. But the wrist of its wielder was grasped with a grip as of iron.
The huge white mountainous cloud, lit up by un-intermittent lightning flashes, now illuminated this life and death struggle with weird, lamp-like effect. For it was a life and death struggle. The white man could not, by every known law of self-preservation, let any witness get away from this place a living witness. The dark man, by the same intuition realised that fact, and such being the case realised also that he was in the position of a “cornered” animal. He must fight—hard and desperately—for his life. And he came of a race of hard and desperate fighters.
Neither spoke. Both were equally matched, the white man, tough, powerful, and in the pink of training; the dark man lithe, cat-like, but accustomed to depend more on quick sinuosity of movement than on sheer muscular power. Moreover he was armed, and his opponent was not.
Armed. One quick deft stroke of that broad-headed short-handled stabbing spear, and where was the other? Yet he could not deliver it. His adversary had bent back his arm. In his iron strength he had forced it out to its full length behind, well nigh dislocating it at the shoulder. The dark man could not even change the weapon into his left hand. And, so sudden had been the onslaught, that his great knobbed stick lay on the ground, yards away.
Wait. The white man could have made an end of the struggle at any moment. He was armed—though to all intents and purposes not—and this is how such a paradox unravels. He had a fully loaded five chambered revolver upon him, but it was a matter of vital importance to refrain from firing a shot on this silent, lonely mountain top at such a moment. So for all practical purposes he was an unarmed man.
Yet his plan of campaign was clear—clear, fell, and remorseless. He had seen what his opponent had not; and now by every effort of his straining, powerful muscles he was forcing that opponent steadily backward. For in the weird light of Heaven’s fires above and around he had detected a certain line in the waving grass bents, which labelled its own character. His adversary should perform his own funeral.
His said adversary was giving way. In fact he was gathering himself for a final spring. Still no word between the two men. Only the deep heave of laboured, but carefully husbanded breathing. Now and then something like a cracking sound, as joints and muscles tightened. Then the dark man suddenly and with a mighty effort, wrenched himself free, and—disappeared.
Disappeared. For a fraction of a second the great white fiery cloud shed its gleam upon an appalled face and rolling eyeballs, and a convulsive clutching of two sinewy hands at the grass tufts; and then upon the white man standing once more on the mountain top—alone.