Suddenly the Kachin gave way and dropped flat. Jack thought his enemy was disposed of, but the shifty mountaineer had only fallen along the lip of the gulf to dodge the powerful strokes delivered by the English lad. With a swift movement the Kachin rolled under the bar, and then was up like lightning and rushing on Jack, a long dagger, plucked from his girdle, in his hand.
Jack had no weapon but his fists, but with these he sprang to meet the savage, blue-kilted figure. Taking advantage of his longer reach, he let fly with his right fist. The Kachin was clearly no boxer, for though he raised his left arm, Jack's fist went straight through the feeble guard and landed full between his opponent's eyes. This shook the Kachin so much that the vicious knife-thrust he launched went wide of its mark, and at the next moment Jack closed with him and tried to wrench the knife from his grasp.
But though the Kachin was no boxer, he was a wrestler of uncommon power and skill, and Jack felt the little man seize upon him with an iron clutch. To and fro they swung on the horrible, dizzying edge, each straining every nerve and muscle to free himself from his enemy's clutch and fling his opponent into the torrent which roared and foamed far below.
Locked in this clinging embrace, they stumbled and fell headlong, still bound together by that straining clutch. They were now actually hanging with heads over the brink of the gulf, and the uproar of the rushing waters below sounded loud in Jack's ears. Suddenly he felt that they were both going over, slowly but steadily. The Kachin was no longer trying to master his foe. So that his enemy went, he was willing to fall with him. He was now driving his heels into the roadway, and, with all the force of the iron muscles packed in his compact body, was trying to force himself and Jack over the brink.
Before Jack had mastered his meaning, the pair were head and shoulders clear of the last beam, and the Kachin was working his way outwards and downwards, inch by inch. Jack made a terrific effort and hurled himself backwards. He gained a few of the lost inches, and felt his shoulders against the edge of the beam. Getting a purchase, he strove to raise himself and fling the Kachin off. In vain. The arms were closed around him in a powerful grip, the savage face within a few inches of his own was working convulsively with hate and rage, and the Kachin now was blind to everything save the desire of destroying the white man.
Another twist and turn in the desperate life-and-death wrestle, and Jack's face was turned towards the opposite side of the gulf. But this was only to show him that a new danger hung over him with fearful menace. He looked straight down a gun-barrel. On the farther brink knelt one of his enemies, a long-barrelled muzzle-loader in his hands. He was leaning across with the evident purpose of firing a heavy iron bullet into Jack's brain. Yet, though beset with death on every hand, Jack struggled on gamely.