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 CHAPTER XII

THE MESSENGER

is gone, I panted, and the world hasn't lost much.

Well, it didn't give him much, did it, poor devil, so don't let's speak ill of him, answered Leo, who had thrown himself exhausted to the ground. Perhaps he was all right before they made him mad. At any rate he had pluck, for I don't want to tackle such another.

How did you manage it? I asked.

Dodged in beneath his sword, closed with him, threw him and smashed him up over that lump of stone. Sheer strength, that's all. A cruel business, but it was his life or mine, and there you are. It's lucky I finished it in time to help you before that oven-mouthed brute tore your throat out. Did you ever see such a dog? It looks as large as a young donkey. Are you much hurt, Horace?

Oh, my forearm is chewed to a pulp, but nothing else, I think. Let us get down to the water; if I can't drink soon I shall faint. Also the rest of the pack is somewhere about, fifty or more of them.

I don't think they will trouble us, they have got the horses, poor beasts. Wait a minute and I will come.

Then he rose, found the Khan's sword, a beautiful and ancient weapon, and with a single cut of its keen edge, killed the second dog that I had wounded, which was still yowling and snarling at us. After this he collected the two spears and my knife, saying that they might be useful, and without trouble caught the Khan's horse, which stood with hanging head close by, so tired that even this desperate fight had not frightened it away.