Even though he might succeed in so far husbanding his strength as to keep up the firing indefinitely, his weapons would soon cease to be of service. Already was he reduced to one musket, the barrel of which was so hot as to burn his hands, and it was only a question of a few moments before he would be defenceless.
He could see Goliah leaping from point to point as he urged his followers to greater exertions, and never once remaining in one position long enough to serve as a fair target.
The rocks fell like rain in a summer shower, and at the expiration of a quarter of an hour the last remaining musket was so choked as to be useless. The entire front of the house gave way. The floor of the chamber swayed to and fro like the branches of a tree in a storm, and it was only by clutching at the window-casings that he saved himself from being precipitated into the road.
He could feel the building crumbling beneath his feet, and it now remained for him to accept one of the two alternatives. He must stay where he was, knowing he would soon be crushed under the fragments of the dwelling, or leap into the midst of the savage brutes who were maddened by thought of victory, and there die like a man.
On a shelf near by was a dagger, perhaps the very weapon the Malays had left sticking in the sand, and beside it lay his revolver, which he had discarded when the battle first began, believing it too small to be of any real service.
These two he seized, one in each hand, and mentally nerving himself for the death which he fancied must come immediately, he leaped through the rent in the walls, alighting on his feet in the road half a dozen paces from the vindictive Goliah.
In his mind there was not the slightest thought that it would be possible to escape a painful death. His only idea was to die while fighting, rather than submit to capture and such torture as the apes could probably devise.
Therefore it is not to be wondered at that an astonishment amounting almost to bewilderment seized upon him when the army, instead of making a deadly assault, dropped their weapons, drew back with every show of respect and even terror, and then bent before him as if trying to assume the most humble positions.