He gave way sooner than I had expected, and we both went down; but somehow, though in general a good wrestler, certainly infinitely stronger than my adversary, and though at first also I was uppermost, I soon lost my advantage. I believe it was that in attempting to place my knee on his breast, it slipped from off his corslet, flinging me forward, so that my balance being lost, he easily cast me off and set his own knee upon me. His sword he had let fall, but he drew his long poniard, and threw back his arm to plunge it into my bosom: when suddenly he received a tremendous blow on the side of the head, which dashed him prostrate on the floor; and to my surprise and astonishment, I saw little Achilles in the person of my deliverer. My pressing danger had communicated to his bosom a spark of generous courage which he had never before felt, and, seizing the unloaded musketoon, he had come behind my adversary and dealt him the blow which had proved my salvation. Nor did he stop here; for what with joy and excitement at his success, and fear that our enemy should recover from the stupefaction which the blow had caused, he continued to belabour his head and face with strokes of the musketoon, with a silent vehemence and rapidity which not all my remonstrances could stop. Even after the man was evidently dead, he continued to reiterate blow upon blow; sometimes pausing and looking at him with eyes in which horror, and fear, and excitement, were all visible; and then adding another and another stroke, as I have often seen a dog after he has killed a rat, or any other noisome animal, every now and then start back and look at him, and then give it another bite, and another, till he has left it scarce a vestige of its original form. Seizing his arm, however, during one of these pauses, I begged him to cease; and would have fain called his attention by thanking him for his timely aid; but the little man could not yet overcome the idea that his enemy might still get up and take vengeance on him for the unheard of daring which he had exercised. "Let me kill him! monseigneur! Let me kill him!" cried he. "Don't you see he moves? look, look!" And, with straining eyes, he struggled forward to make quite sure that his victory wanted nothing of completion, by adding another blow to those he had already given. "He will never move again, Achilles," replied I; "spare your blows, for you bestow them on a dead man, and well has he merited his fate----" "Had we not better tie his hands, at least?" cried the little player. "He lies still enough too. Only think of my having killed a man--I shall be a brave man for all the rest of my life. But if I had not killed him, you would have been lying there as still as he is."