The dogs appeared to have been released upon a preconcerted signal, for their choruses of baying broke out all the way across the valley at the same time, accompanied by the ringing shouts of the men and the shrill ululations of a bevy of women and girls who had trailed along after us and had now joined the hunt.
Tebu hushed his singing and froze to attention as the underbrush began to crackle, and I knew by the flash of blood-lust in his eyes the instant he sighted the first pig. This animal, which was startled but not aroused, lunged back into the scrub before he reached the "gateway," and two or three other half-hearted mavericks did likewise before one arrived on the scene who really had his mind made up about going through to the lower valley. Singleness of purpose showed in every line of the flying black mass that came dashing down the runway and headed straight for the "gate." Possibly the fear of the dogs was in his heart, but he looked more mad than frightened as, without a pause or a side-glance of indecision, he hurled himself upon the motionless bronze figure that blocked the way. On he came, like a bull at a gate, and even as I gasped to myself that a regiment of soldiers couldn't block his flight, he dashed against the lone human barrier and the miracle was enacted. The impassive giant hardly seemed to move. There was sharp tensing of the powerful frame, a flash of sunlight glinting across the golden muscles, a quick movement of the wrist that might almost have been a caress—and the flying mass of bone and sinew was quivering at the gladiator's feet. There was not a squeal or a kick. It was almost as though the bronze Titan had waved his hand and muttered "Alive! Dead! Presto! Change!" and that thus it had come to pass. The swift transition from life to death reminded me of the wilting of a steer under the touch of the "killer" in an Uruguayan matadero, where they slay by severing the spinal cord at the base of the horns with a knife thrust. But there the twinkle of the wrist snuffed the life spark in the body of a passive animal, while here the same easy, effortless movement had smothered it while it flared at full power in a quarter of a ton of flying flesh and bone that was itself a Bolt of Death.
Another and yet another charging monster was crumpled to earth while I was still lost in speculation respecting the manner of the passing of the first, and it was not until the fourth or fifth fugitive appeared that I gathered my wits together for a dispassionate study of the way the wonder was wrought. Then I quickly came to the conclusion that it was the almost absolute "evenness" of the charge that made the thing possible at all. The surface of the runway was smooth and sloped but slightly, while its narrowness and straightness at the "gate" held the pig to an undeviating course whether he wished it or not. Though he came at a great speed, the huge body advanced almost as evenly as though running on a track, making it possible for a man with a steady hand and nerve to locate to a nicety that little three-inch-wide spot between the neck and shoulder where the point of knife must enter to be effective. That vulnerable point would be covered by the upward toss of the head that the boar has timed to make at the moment of impact, and the whole success of the thrust depends upon a quick forward step and a lunge that anticipates that toss by the hundredth part of a second.
While he is waiting the native receiving the charge scrapes a shallow depression in the path—something similar to a sprinter's starting holes—into which the toes of his left foot are set for a firm grip on the earth. At the psychologic moment the right foot is advanced half a pace, the left leg straightened into a brace, the right arm, with its extended cutlass, stiffened to a bar of steel—and the thing is done. The keen two-foot blade, slipping between the shoulder blade and the first rib, shores its way through heart and lungs, and its point may even penetrate to the abdominal cavity. If the stroke is true the blade and handle of the knife are buried to the wrist of the arm that drives it and the charging animal crumples up into an inert mass without uttering a sound. If the vital spot is missed, what happens depends largely upon the extent of the error. If the point of the knife meets a bone squarely—as rarely happens, however—the man behind it may be thrown backward or to one side by the impact, and escape unscathed. The usual miss, however, comes through having the point of the knife deflected by the toss of the boar's head, and the result is a glancing thrust which will probably leave the hunter still in the path of the charge and exposed to the deadly side-swipe of the great back-curving tusks.
It is not often that there is more than one wound—a charging boar rarely returns to the attack once his impetus has carried him clear of his enemies—and the consequences of this depend largely upon its location. If a thigh is cut deeply enough the wounded man will bleed to death; and if the slash is across the abdomen, though he may linger, it is rarely indeed that blood-poisoning fails ultimately to claim him for a victim. Because the wild pig is so foul a feeder, there is also grave danger of blood-poisoning from the superficial wounds on the arms and legs, but most of these, it is said, are recovered from.
Tebu dropped another pig or two with the same easy nonchalance that had marked his manner from the outset, and then, reluctantly, gave place to the man next in line. This one was called Maro, and he was reputed the champion pig-sticker of the leeward side of the island. As first "backer-up," he had been chafing under the enforced inactivity for some minutes and complaining that Tebu was taking the cream of the sport for himself. The new "Number 1" was less massive of build than his predecessor, but was muscled with the fluent undulations of swift-running water—a man compact of watchsprings, a human tiger-cat. Deftly and easily he dropped his first pig—a rangy boar—slapped a flying half-grown shote contemptuously with the flat of his cutlass as beneath his notice, and had just got well "set" on his toes again, when that bane of the Marquesan pigsticker, a "double"—two boars running close together—came charging down.
By all the rules of the game this twin terror should have been allowed to go by unmolested, for successfully to stick a "double" is a feat as rare as a triple play in baseball or the "hat trick" in cricket—a thing to be talked about for years after it has happened. But it chanced to come at the moment when the shifty Maro was just "on edge"—nicely warmed up and steadied by his first pig and yet not wearied by successive efforts—and then there was the Beretani—the white man—who had to be shown what a Marquesan could really do in a pinch. Probably the latter was the more powerful incentive. At any rate, without a gesture or a glance of hesitation, he settled the toes of his left foot firmly into their hole, poised for an instant in quivering readiness, and then, with the swiftness of a striking cobra, lurched forward in two lightning passes.
The first thrust, which was delivered at the full extension of his reach, appeared barely to brush the neck of the foremost boar, but the next—driven home with a short-arm jab like a pugilist's close-in hook at an opponent's solar plexus—buried the full length of the knife in the shoulder of the second boar, and brought it down in a heap, Maro himself being tripped and half-buried under the inert body. That the first boar had been more than scratched seemed impossible; yet there he lay, almost at my feet, giving what appeared to be his dying kicks. Tebu and his mate were extricating Maro from under the body of the second boar, and it struck me that the humane thing to do would be to put the wounded beast out of his agony. Accordingly, without taking especial care to aim accurately, I directed a couple of bullets from my ".38" automatic at a spot behind one of the ears which appeared to be vulnerable.
Just where the bullets struck I never found out, for the well-meant shots awakened something besides the echoes of the rock-girt gorge. At the touch of the lead the apparently dying boar scrambled to his feet and made a dive for the lower end of the "gate." Tebu struck viciously as the animal passed him, but only landed a harmless slash, and the cutlass of the other native, flung on the chance of severing a rear tendon, went wide of its mark. The fugitive, running blind but strong, disappeared among the mazes of trails that led into the lower valley, followed by the wails of Maro, who saw the feat of a lifetime marred by the interference of a meddlesome outsider who had been too cowardly to take a hand in the dangerous part of the game himself. Shouting something in voluble Marquesan in my direction, he leapt back into the runway as a renewed crashing broke out above, and stood savagely on guard.
"What did he say?" I asked McGrath's boy, Tavu, who had stuck closely to my side through all the excitement.