'Good God!' yelled Poyning. 'The man will be trampled flat!' In an instant he had wheeled and dashed back, waving his arms and shouting, as if in a wild hope to stem that terrible charge. He might as well have shouted at a typhoon of the China seas. Philipson continued to fire. He must have got in three shots before the rush drew near, and the main herd swerved and went wide; but the wounded bull came on alone, bellowing with fury. He was within ten yards of Philipson when a shot took him between the forelegs, and I could see that at last he was checked. The great brute swung to the right, straight at Poyning, who leapt aside but stumbled in the doing and fell heavily to earth. The next instant he was on his back, helpless, while the monster drew up and lowered the enormous horns to gore. Then ensued the most amazing sight these eyes of mine have ever beheld. In a flash Philipson had dropped his rifle and dived forward, gripping the horns of the yak at their tips. I expected to see him instantly tossed high in the air, but this didn't happen. The yak paused, as if bewildered to find this weight drop suddenly from nowhere on to its horns. Then it seemed to me that the beast _could not move_. It pawed the earth restlessly with its hind hoofs, but the fore hoofs remained quite still, as did the monstrous head. You would have said some instantaneous catalepsy had turned the animal's forequarters to stone. I stood still, gazing, spellbound by the sight, and there, for a span of seconds that seemed hours, we were in a tableau: Poyning motionless and apparently stunned, the huge yak held by the horns, Philipson holding it, and staring between the brute's eyes with a look of tremendous, overpowering concentration. It was a movement of Poyning's that brought me to myself. He rolled suddenly towards the rifle. I dashed in and snatched it up and had my cartridge in the chamber, when the yak gave a queer sort of whistling groan, swayed slowly to one side, and fell with a thud that made the earth jump under our feet. I fired at the same instant, but I know the brute was dead before my bullet struck. It lay still. Saunders Philipson was lying beside it, white as the snow on the peaks above us, a thin trickle of blood coming from his nostrils.