hem did not
come on again at once. Perhaps the sight of their dying companion made
them pause. At any rate, they stood at a little distance snarling,
where, as our spears were gone, they were safe from us.

Now the Khan had ridden up and sat upon his horse glowering at us, and
his face was like the face of a devil. I had hoped that he might fear to
attack, but the moment I saw his eyes, I knew that this would not be. He
was quite mad with hate, jealousy, and the long-drawn excitement of the
hunt, and had come to kill or be killed. Sliding from the saddle, he
drew his short sword--for either he had lost his spear or had brought
none--and made a hissing noise to the two dogs, pointing at me with the
sword. I saw them spring and I saw him rush at Leo, and after that who
can tell exactly what happened?

My knife went home to the hilt in the body of one dog--and it came to
the ground and lay there--for its hindquarters were paralysed, howling,
snarling and biting at me. But the other, the fiend called Master, got
me by the right arm beneath the elbow, and I felt my bones crack in its
mighty jaws, and the agony of it, or so I suppose, caused me to drop the
knife, so that I was weaponless. The brute dragged me from the rock and
began to shake and worry me, although I kicked it in the stomach with
all my strength. I fell to my knees and, as it chanced, my left hand
came upon a stone of about the size of a large orange, which I gripped.
I gained my feet again and pounded at its skull with the stone, but
still it did not leave go, and this was well for me, for its next hold
would have been on my throat.

We twisted and tumbled to and fro, man and dog together. At one turn
I thought that I saw Leo and the Khan rolling over and over each other
upon the ground; at another, that he, the Khan, was sitting against a
stone looking at me, and it came into my mind that he must have killed
Leo and was watching while the dog worried me to death.

Then just as things began to grow black, something sprang forward and I
saw the huge hound lifted from the earth. Its jaws opened, my arm came
free and fell against my side. Yes! the brute was whirling round in
the air. Leo held it by its hind legs and with all his great strength
whirled it round and round.

_Thud!_

He had dashed its head against the rock, and it fell and lay still, a
huddled heap of black and red. Oddly enough, I did not faint; I suppose
that the pain and the shock to my n