"It's his, I suppose," I said, and looked up at him. At that precise instant he tripped and fell full length on the sand. I've seen a good many lucky escapes in my day—a man who has travelled the out-of-the-way places of the world from the Yukon and the White Nile down to the headwaters of the Fly River in the snow-mountains of Dutch New Guinea does see a bit of life—but the way that fat chap upset himself into the sand was the most wonderful piece of good fortune I ever came across. He must have missed death by a fraction of an inch. I saw him fall, heard the shot ring out and watched the sand spurt up all in the one crowded second. The next moment I was running towards him, my hand moving instinctively to my empty pistol-pocket. But my mind readjusted itself in a flash, and I recollected that I wasn't dodging cannibals in the upper reaches of the Mambare, but was living in a civilised country where a man who carries a revolver, and gets caught at it, is fined more money than I'd seen in the last twelve months.
The other chap seemed to divine instinctively that I was a friend, for he yelled at me even while he was hauling himself up from the sand.
"There's one in my pocket," he shouted and gesticulated back towards his clothes.
I didn't waste a moment, but sped over the intervening yards like a man possessed. As luck would have it his coat was the first thing I grabbed, and the weight of it told me at once in which pocket to look. I plunged my hand in and drew out the sweetest little automatic it has ever been my lot to handle. As a rule I prefer a Colt—in my experience it never jams—but I rather fancied my present weapon would do all that was required, so I slipped back the safety catch with my thumb and whirled round on my heel to face whatever was coming.
The overture was already over and the invisible marksman had settled down to steady firing. The fat man was now almost on top of me, and I saw instantly that that brought me right into the line of fire. It takes a long time in the telling, but, as I figured it out afterwards, from the instant the first shot missed the old chap down to the moment I pulled the trigger, more than half a minute could not have elapsed.
There was only one place in sight where a man could take cover, and that was a bunch of rocks just a little to the left of my position. I let off a fancy shot in that direction, and a second later the reply rang out. The cliff overhead shed a shower of dust on top of the pair of us, and the fat man crouched into the corner. I knew now where my man was, so I waited until he exposed himself, as I saw he must do when he fired again.
"Gimme the gun!" the fat man demanded in the interval.
"Shut up!" I said, without turning my head. "I'm a better shot than you, I reckon, and, anyway, it's just as much my funeral now as yours. He's had a shot at me, and that's a thing I don't forgive in a hurry."
"Well, of all the——," I heard him say, and then the rest of his remark was drowned in the report of my weapon. I had spotted a white wrist back of a gleam of polished metal and, taking a sporting chance, I let drive. The other man's gun dropped to the sand, and a yell told me that I had made no mistake.
"Here's where I come in," I said, and, forgetting the condition of my feet, I sprinted towards the rocks. But the other fellow had decided that the place was getting too hot for him, and he made off along the sand as fast as his legs could carry him. He must have been in excellent trim, for he shot along the heavy track as if he was running on the cinder-path, and I saw before I had gone fifty yards that I hadn't a chance in the world of catching him. Also there were half a dozen black specks of men a mile or so along the beach, and my reason told me that homicide before witnesses wasn't likely to prove a healthy pastime. So I swallowed my pride and, consoling myself with the thought that some day we might meet again, I wheeled about and made back to the nook.