“Ha, accursed one, did you think to escape me? But the fool is not such a fool after all! I have you, and this time there shall be no delay. Your friend Bug-Jargal shall not wait for you long, you shall soon be at the meeting-place, but it will be the wave of the cataract that shall bear you there.”
As he spoke he dashed at me with uplifted weapon.
“Monster,” cried I, retreating to the platform, “just now you were only an executioner, now you are a murderer.”
“I am an avenger,” returned he, grinding his teeth.
I was on the edge of the precipice; he endeavoured to hurl me over with a blow of his dagger. I avoided it. His foot slipped on the treacherous moss which covered the rocks, he rolled into the slope polished and rounded by the constant flow of water.
“A thousand devils!” roared he.
He had fallen into the abyss.
I have already mentioned that the roots of the old tree projected through the crevices of the rocks, a little below the edge of the precipice. In his fall the dwarf struck against these, his striped petticoat caught in them, he grasped at them as a last hope of safety, and clung to them with all the energy of despair.
His pointed bonnet fell from his head; to maintain his position he had to let go his dagger, and the two together disappeared in the depths of the abyss.
Habibrah, suspended over the terrible gulf, strove vainly to regain the platform, but his short arms could not reach the rocky edge, and he broke his nails in useless efforts to obtain a hold on the muddy surface of the rocks which sloped down into the terrible abyss.