Many times since then have I dreamt of a hand that struck me from out the darkness, while the same unspeakable dread froze up my life, until, by repetition, it has sunk deep into my soul with the weight of a positive conviction.  I know, as I now write, that this will be my end, and his will be the hand that strikes.  The fibre of our lives is twisted in a certain way, and each has its own fixed mode of unravelling,—­this will be mine.

When I had recovered from the first momentary shock I turned and looked behind me.  There, close upon me, with his huge form blocking the narrow entrance, stood Rama Ragobah, my rival, his face hideous with malignant triumph!  I was trapped, and that, too, by a man whom my hatred, could it have worked its will, would have plunged into the uttermost hell of torment.  I felt sure my hour had come, but my assassin should not have the satisfaction of thinking I feared him.  I did not permit myself to betray the slightest concern as to my position—­indeed, after the shock of the first surprise, I did not care so very much what fate awaited me.  Why should I?  Had I not seriously thought of taking my own life?  Was it not clear now that Lona, whose own handwriting had decoyed me, had most basely betrayed me into her husband’s hands?  If I had wished to end my own life before, surely now, death, at the hands of another, was no very terrible thing.  Could I have dragged that other down with me, I would have rejoiced at the prospect!

Ragobah broke the silence.  “You have left your stick this time, I see,” he said, as he unsheathed the long knife I had once before escaped, and ostentatiously felt its edge as if he were about to shave with it.

“You were in haste, Sahib, when you left me last time, or I should not now have the pleasure of this interview.  Be assured I shall do my work more thoroughly this time.  Behind you there is a hole partly filled with water.  If you drop a stone into this well, it is several seconds before you hear the splash, and there is a saying hereabouts that it is bottomless.  I am curious to know if this be true, and I am going to send you to see.  Of course, if the story is well founded, I shall not expect you to come back.  That would be unreasonable, Sahib.”

All this was said with a refined sarcasm which maddened me, and, as he concluded, he began to edge stealthily toward me.  So strong is the instinct of self-preservation within us that I doubt not a would-be suicide, caught in the act of hanging himself, would struggle madly for his life were someone else to forcibly adjust the noose about his neck.  At all events, I found myself unwilling, at the last moment, to have someone else launch me into eternity and, as I wished to gain time to think what I should do to escape, I said to him: 

“Why do you bear me such malice?  Can you not see that any injury I may have done you was purely in self-defence?  You sought the quarrel, and I took the only means at hand to protect myself.  I did not, as you know, seek to kill you, a thing I could easily have done, but was content merely to make good my escape.  I—­”