"Just in the nick of time I felt the cord relax, and, although
the veins in my head seemed to be bursting, I managed to get my
fingers under that damnable rope. To this very hour I can hear
Vadi's shriek of pain as I broke his thumb, and it brings the
whole scene back to me.
"Clutching the rope with my left hand, I groaned and lay still.
The Brahmin slightly shifted his position, which was what I
wanted him to do. The brief respite had been sufficient. As he
moved, I managed to draw my knees up, very slightly, for he was a
big, heavy man, but sufficiently to enable me to throw him off
and roll over.
"Then, gentlemen, I dealt with him as he had meant to deal with
me; only I used my bare hands and made a job of it.
"I stood up, breathing heavily, and looked down at him where he
lay in the shadows at my feet. Dusk had come with a million
stars, and almost above my head were flowering creepers festooned
from bough to bough. The two campfires danced up and cast their
red light upon the jagged rocks of the hillock, which started up
from the very heart of the thicket, to stand out like some giant
pyramid against the newly risen moon.
"There were night things on the wing, and strange whispering
sounds came from the forests clothing the hills. Then came a
distant, hollow booming like the sound of artillery, which echoed
down the mountain gorges and seemed to roll away over the lowland
swamps and die, inaudible, by the remote river.
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