The gun was loaded with number six shot in both barrels.
Dan Creyton’s hand was on the triggers and as he went down the two charges exploded, tearing out the twigs and scattering green perforated leaves in the air overhead.
As Dan Creyton fell, George threw himself upon Petit.
The frenzied convict fought and struggled like a mad lion.
He was more than a match for them both. Besides, this unexpected development of a morning’s peaceful sport had taken them completely by surprise.
They did not know whether their assailant was an escaped lunatic, a murderer, or a law-abiding citizen, who was labouring under an impression that he had struck an island of homicides. The question was, who was justified? They had heard the shots fired and the shouting, but they were absolutely ignorant of the meaning of it all.
However, the average Anglo-Saxon does not pause to reason about things when he is attacked—he hits out.
They struggled with the escapee, who knew his only chance of making things even was to get possession of a gun. Escape from the island, his instinct told him, had been cut off. He was in a tight place, wounded and must kill and smash a way out. One murder more or less did not matter to him. He fought for a little longer life, a few hours’ further liberty—that was all. He bled, but he did not feel his wounds. Tom’s bullets had not hit him in any vital part of the body.
Dan Creyton was stunned by the force of the fall, by the weight of the aggressor, and by Petit’s rapid blows.
