In another instant, despite the fact that I had escaped his first blow, he would have stricken me down, and this I realized, therefore, bending my body ever so slightly, I darted in to catch him under the arms, as we lads were wont to do while wrestling. How I might dispose of him, or he of me, after that, did not come into my calculations, for the very good reason that there was no time in which to reason out the matter. The fellow was thrown off his guard for an instant by my unexpected and unusual movement, and fortune so far favored me that I was able to get a grip upon the naked murderer’s throat in such a fashion that he could not cry out. I hope it will never be my ill luck to have again such a struggle as ensued. While battling for very life, and knowing that the slightest careless movement would give him an opportunity to brain me, I had sense enough to realize that the noise of the struggle would bring to his aid a score or more of his fellows. Therefore was I hampered in my efforts because I durst not work as I otherwise would, whilst he, on his part, was aiming to give the alarm, threshing here and there with his feet in the hope that some of those near about might hear him, and all the while I wondered where Simon Bartlett could be. The only hold which the fellow could get upon me was around my back, and he hugged as does a bear, striving to crush in my ribs, until the sense of suffocation which came upon me was so nearly overpowering that had it been only my life which was in the balance I must have given up the struggle before it was well begun. Not many seconds did we stand upright in this fight which could end only in the death of one; soon we were on the ground, he uppermost, but I knowing that the advantage was mine, because of his protruding tongue and eyeballs, which seemed starting from their sockets. How long we fought there I am unable to say. It seemed to me a full hour was spent, when most likely no more than three minutes had passed, and during all this time, as I afterward learned, Master Bartlett was doing his utmost to get in a blow with his knife, but finding it difficult to do so without danger of wounding me. Then, at the very moment when I believed victory lay with the Mohawk, and that I was even on the borders of the Beyond, I felt the sinewy frame suddenly relax, the head which had been bent toward me in the effort to weaken the hold upon his throat fell back, as a stream of warm blood covered my breast. Simon Bartlett had thrust his knife in through the savage’s back, and the fight was over.