. All was still. Then he rose
to his knees.

A sharp humming twang, a hissing sound, and a thud followed in
lightning-like succession. Topanashka bends over, and at the same time
tumbles forward on his face. There he lies, the left cheek and shoulder
on the ground. The left arm, with which he has sought to support the
body, has slipped; and it now lies fully extended partly below the head,
the prostrate head. The chest is heaving painfully, as if under
extraordinary pressure. Face and neck are colouring; the lips part; the
throat makes a convulsive effort to swallow. The eyes are starting; they
denote suffocation and terrible pain. The legs twitch; they seem
struggling to come to the rescue of the body's upper half.

From the back of the old man there protrudes an arrowshaft. It has
pierced it close to the spine, between it and the right shoulder-blade,
penetrating into the lungs, where it now stabs and smarts.

From a distant tree-top there sounds the hoarse "kuawk, kuawk" of the
crow. Otherwise all is still.

The wounded man coughs; with the cough blood comes to his lips,--light
red blood. The thighs begin to struggle, as if formication was going on
in the muscles. It is an impotent movement, and yet is done
consciously; for the trunk of the body, which was beginning more and
more to yield, now begins to turn clumsily backward; the left hand
clutches the soil; the arm is trying to heave, to lift. But the weight
is too heavy, the shaft inside too firmly and too deeply rooted.
Nevertheless the hips succeed in rising; the trunk follows; then it
tumbles over on the back, contracts with a moan of pain and suffering,
and lies there trembling with spasmodic shivers.

Topanashka has made this superhuman effort for a purpose. He feels that
his wound is severe, that his strength is gone; his senses are darkened
and his thoughts confused. Still there is a spark of life left, and that
spark demands that he should attempt to see whence came the arrow that
so terribly lacerates his breast. But as he has fallen over heavily, the
point of the arrow has been pressed deeper. Flint--an arrow-head of
flint with notched edges--tears; the muscles do not close about the
intruder. The blood flows into the chest; it fills the lungs; he
suffocates. Yet all consciousness has not vanished, although pain and
oppression overwhelm the physical instruments of consciousness, and
deprive the will of its connection with its tools. The will longs t