Herbert looked for the enemy. None was in sight—at least to his eyes. The boar, however, had either seen or heard something: for he was evidently upon the strain to spring off.
Just then, a loud report reverberated through the glade, a bullet hissed through the air, and the animal, with a shrill scream, turned over upon its back, the blood spouting from a wound in its thigh.
In an instant it was on its feet again; but rage appeared to hinder it from attempting flight! It retreated only a few paces, taking its stand between two of the buttresses of the ceiba—on the very spot where the young Englishman had passed the night. There—protected on both flanks and in the rear—and uttering fierce grunts of defiance—it stood, as if awaiting an enemy.
Soon after a man emerged from the underwood, armed with what appeared to be a straight sword or cutlass.
In a dozen quick strides he crossed the glade; and, having reached the roots of the cotton-tree, became engaged in a deadly struggle with the wounded boar.
Notwithstanding the damage done to it, the creature was still a formidable antagonist; and it required all the address of the hunter—habile though he appeared to be—to avoid contact with his terrible tusks.
Each alternatively charged upon the other—the hunter endeavouring to thrust the quadruped with his long blade, while the boar in its turn would repeatedly rush towards its antagonist, suddenly rear itself upon its hind legs, and strike upwards with its armed and grinning muzzle.
It was one of the fore-legs of the animal that had been broken by the shot; but the wound, although greatly disabling it, did not hinder it from making a protracted and desperate defence. The spurs of the cotton-tree rising on each side proved its best protectors—hindering its assailant from turning its flanks and piercing it in the side. The combat, therefore, was face to face; and the blade of the hunter, repeatedly thrust forward, as often glanced harmlessly from the hard skull, or glinted with a metallic ring against the tusks of the boar.
For several minutes did this singular contest continue—the young Englishman all the while watching it with lively interest; but without giving the slightest signs of his being a spectator. Indeed, the scene was so exciting, and had come under his eyes so unexpectedly, that he was for a time held speechless by sheer surprise.
After a while the struggle between biped and quadruped was brought to a termination. The former—who appeared to possess all the craft of his calling—put in practice a ruse that enabled him to give his antagonist the coup de grace.