upon it.  What happened to Job after that I am sure I do not know, but my own impression is that he lay still upon the corpse of his deceased assailant, “playing ’possum” as the Americans say.  As for myself, I was soon involved in a desperate encounter with two ruffians, who, luckily for me, had left their spears behind them; and for the first time in my life the great physical power with which Nature has endowed me stood me in good stead.  I had hacked at the head of one man with my hunting-knife, which was almost as big and heavy as a short sword, with such vigour, that the sharp steel had split his skull down to the eyes, and was held so fast by it that as he suddenly fell sideways the knife was twisted right out of my hand.

Then it was that the two others sprang upon me.  I saw them coming, and got an arm round the waist of each, and down we all fell upon the floor of the cave together, rolling over and over.  They were strong men, but I was mad with rage, and that awful lust for slaughter which will creep into the hearts of the most civilised of us when blows are flying, and life and death tremble on the turn.  My arms were round the two swarthy demons, and I hugged them till I heard their ribs crack and crunch up beneath my grip.  They twisted and writhed like snakes, and clawed and battered at me with their fists, but I held on.  Lying on my back there, so that their bodies might protect me from spear thrusts from above, I slowly crushed the life out of them, and as I did so, strange as it may seem, I thought of what the amiable Head of my College at Cambridge (who is a member of the Peace Society) and my brother Fellows would say if by clairvoyance they could see me, of all men, playing such a bloody game.  Soon my assailants grew faint, and almost ceased to struggle, their breath had failed them, and they were dying, but still I dared not leave them, for they died very slowly.  I knew that if I relaxed my grip they would revive.  The other ruffians probably thought—­for we were all three lying in the shadow of the ledge—­that we were all dead together, at any rate they did not interfere with our little tragedy.

I turned my head, and as I lay gasping in the throes of that awful struggle I could see that Leo was off the rock now, for the lamplight fell full upon him.  He was still on his feet, but in the centre of a surging mass of struggling men, who were striving to pull him down as wolves pull down a stag.  Up above them towered his beautiful pale face crowned with its bright curls (for Leo is six feet two high), and I saw that he was fighting with a desperate abandonment and energy that was at once splendid and hideous to behold.  He drove his knife through one man—­they were so close to and mixed up with him that they could not get at him to kill him with their big spears, and they had no knives or sticks.  The man fell, and then somehow the knife was wrenched from his hand, leaving him defenceless, and I thought the end had