The two Indians now stood regarding one another with looks of rage, and took the knives off their necks.  Neither spoke a word.  Each understood the other, and with flashing eyes watched to take an advantage.  They were both powerful men, well matched in size and age, and equally armed, so that upon fortune and skill, more than upon brute strength, the result was likely to depend.

Presently, each grasping the knife in his right hand, and bending over, ready for a spring, they began, with eyes fixed on one another, to move round and round, watching for a favorable opportunity to make the fatal dart.  Thus, occasionally increasing the rapidity of their movements, then relaxing their swiftness again, they moved in circles several times, but without drawing within striking distance.  The thought occurred to both of throwing the knife, which, if skilfully done, might terminate the contest, but the consideration that if the stroke failed, the unsuccessful combatant would be left at the mercy of the other, deterred from the hazardous experiment.  After various feints and stratagems foiled, by mutual cunning the two foes stopped, as if by agreement, to devise more effectual schemes of destruction.  In this truce of a moment, the eyes of Quecheco fell upon a tomahawk lying near the feet of his opponent, and unobserved by him.  His efforts were now directed to getting possession of the weapon, and he re-commenced the system of attack he had practised.  It was no difficult thing, by a series of retreats and advances, and constant changes of position, to entice the Pequot, ignorant of the other’s design, from the place whereon he stood, and presently the foot of Quecheco touched the missile.  The movement of his foe’s limbs in searching for the tomahawk had caught the notice of Towanquattick, and before it was touched by Quecheco’s foot he had seen it.  At the sight, throwing aside the caution he had practised, the Pequot sprung straight at his enemy, and, without seeking to protect himself, plunged his knife into the breast of Quecheco.  The force of the blow threw the stooping savage upon his back, and before he could rise, the tomahawk, caught from the ground by the hand of the Pequot, crashed into the brain of the dying traitor.  Drawing out, then, the knife, the Pequot, with a rapid turn that indicated a practised hand, passed it round the head of his foe, and tearing off the bloody trophy, hung it at his girdle.  A little while the Pequot stood contemplating the body, and as his eyes wandered from the corpse to the gun, which lay on the ground, and back again to the corpse a ferocious gleam of gratified revenge, like the lurid gleam of fires at night, swept over his swarthy face.  Picking up, then, the gun, the knives and tomahawks, and stripping the corpse of the articles containing the powder and bullets, the Indian started in search of Joy.