fear of striking the wrong man hands and knives could not
be bold. I heard Diccon fighting, and knew that there would be howling
tomorrow among the squaws of the Paspaheghs. With all his might my lord
strove to bend the sword against me, and at last did cut me across the
arm, causing the blood to flow freely. It made a pool upon the floor,
and once my foot slipped in it, and I stumbled and almost fell.

Two of the Paspaheghs were silent for evermore. Diccon had the knife of
the first to fall, and it ran red. The Italian, quick and sinuous as a
serpent, kept beside my lord and me, striving to bring his dagger to his
master's aid. We two panted hard; before our eyes blood, within our ears
the sea. The noise of the other combatants suddenly fell. The hush could
only mean that Diccon was dead or taken. I could not look behind to
see. With an access of fury I drove my antagonist toward a corner of the
hut,--the corner, so it chanced, in which the panther had taken up its
quarters. With his heel he struck the beast out of his way, then made
a last desperate effort to throw me. I let him think he was about to
succeed, gathered my forces and brought him crashing to the ground. The
sword was in my hand and shortened, the point was at his throat, when my
arm was jerked backwards. A moment, and half a dozen hands had dragged
me from the man beneath me, and a supple savage had passed a thong of
deerskin around my arms and pinioned them to my sides. The game was up;
there remained only to pay the forfeit without a grimace.

Diccon was not dead; pinioned, like myself, and breathing hard, he
leaned sullenly against the wall, they that he had slain at his feet.
My lord rose, and stood over against me. His rich doublet was torn and
dragged away at the neck, and my blood stained his hand and arm. A smile
was upon the face that had made him master of a kingdom's master.

"The game was long," he said, "but I have won at last. A long good-night
to you, Captain Percy, and a dreamless sleep!"

There was a swift backward movement of the Indians, and a loud "The
panther, sir! Have a care!" from Diccon. I turned. The panther, maddened
by the noise and light, the shifting figures, the blocked doors, the
sight and smell of blood, the blow that had been dealt it, was crouching
for a spring. The red-brown hair was bristling, the eyes were terrible.
I was before it, but those glaring eyes had marked me not. It passed me
like a bar from a catapult,