One thought gave him courage as, springing away to the right, fighting for time to draw a blade, hotly pursued by the panting Spaniard, he rounded a great mahogany tree.
Having drawn his right hand blade, he took a stand in a raised spot offering some slight advantage.
His crafty opponent did not rush him. Instead he attempted to outmaneuver him by springing first to right, then to left, to at last completely circle him.
“You’ll not win by that,” thought Johnny as the blood still pounded at his temples. “That is like boxing.”
This maneuvering gave him time for a few darting thoughts as to how the affair was to end. If he were killed, what then? He hoped his body might be found at once. Madge Kennedy would never consent to the ship’s starting without him, dead or alive. That he knew well enough. He wanted this, his last undertaking, to succeed, wanted it desperately.
“Somehow I must outmaneuver him,” he thought. At once his mind turned to that extra blade.
There was no time for drawing it, for of a sudden his opponent, with blade lifted high, sprang squarely at him. Had Johnny been beneath that blade when it fell, his skull must have been split. With skill acquired as a boxer, he leaped away and the machete, slipping from the Spaniard’s unnerved hand, dropped harmless on the moss.
There was no time for Johnny to seize his opponent’s blade. There was opportunity to draw his left hand blade. Draw it he did.
The expression on the Spaniard’s dark and angry face as he found himself facing two blades was strange to see. Plainly he was puzzled and nonplussed. He had fought and beyond doubt done for more than one man who, like himself, wielded a single machete. But what of this boy who seemed at home with two?
He wasted little time in thought, but springing with a twisting glide, he attempted to throw Johnny off his guard. In this he was not successful.