"Yes," said I, "tipped with deadly poison. Say," I added, "do I look strange? Is my face black, or green, or blue?"
He laughed and answered:
"Nay, 'tis a lovely red, I vow."
That relieved me greatly; still, being far from satisfied, my hand went creeping to the spot where, as it seemed, the arrow had struck clean through to the breastbone, and there, beneath my coat, I felt the Black Box.
"Heaven be thanked!" said I aloud. "It saved me."
"What saved thee, friend?" asked Ratlaw with a puzzled look.
"Nothing," I answered quickly; then added, "or rather, you did, surely."
"Mebbe I did," said he; "you'm right agen, I reckon. Another minute--and----"
"Yes, yes," I put in eagerly; "pray, tell me all about it"--for indeed it seemed astonishing that Tubal Ammon had not finished me while yet he had the power to do so.
"Well, 'twere like this," quoth Ratlaw. "As I were a-cooming 'long oop over from--well, from minding that as needs the minding, I saw what looked like one great whopping man a-swaying in the moonlight. 'Twere a terror of a thing, I tell 'ee, and I were just a bit afeard; but on I coome, and then may I be drownded if that whopping man did not break clean in two, and one half of it (that's you) went flop. I heard your head go crack upon yon stump, then t'other half jumped on you, and I saw the flashing of a knife. I were close by then--a dozen yards away, not more--so I whips out my hanger here and cooms on roarin' like a lion. Joost in toime and only joost. The knife wor raised to stroike, when, hearing me, he joomps oop, snarls at me loike any dog, and flies off cursing. And oh, the face of en! Zur, if 'twere not the Evil One hisself, who wor it?"