I was roughly aroused from my reflections by Rama Ragobah.
"Come, Sahib," he said, as his thick lips curled sneeringly, "suppose you try your spells upon me? You will never have a better chance than now to show your power," and again he made a slight movement toward me with the gleaming knife. The moon, low down upon the horizon, sent a broad beam of light into the entrance of the cave and over the head and shoulders of the Indian. Its cold light shimmered along the blade which was now held threateningly toward me. The crisis had been reached.
In times of such great urgency one has frequently an inspiration --instantaneous, disconnected, unbidden--which no amount of quiet, peaceful thought would suggest. Such extraordinary flashes are the result of reasoning too rapid for consciousness to note. The Indian had already laid bare his right arm to the elbow before I had determined upon the desperate course I would pursue, and upon which I must hazard all. As he advanced upon me I seized the large, white sola hat from my head, and hurled it full in his face. It was a schoolboy trick, yet upon its success depended my life. Instinctively, and in spite of himself, Ragobah dodged, closed his eyes, and raised his right hand, knife and all, to shield his face. I sprang upon him at the same instant I threw my hat, and so was able to reach him before he opened his eyes. I had well calculated his movements, and had made no mistake. As I reached him his head was bent downward and forward to let the hat pass over him. His position could not have been better for my purpose. I "swung on him," as we used to say at the gymnasium, catching him under his protruded jaw, not far from the region of the carotid artery. The blow was well placed, and desperation lent me phenomenal strength. It raised him bodily off his feet, and hurled him backward out of the cave, where he lay motionless. He was now in my power. I seized his knife and bent over him. Words cannot express the hatred, the loathing I felt for him then and always. Between me and the light of my happiness he had ever stood, an impenetrable black mass. Twice had he sought my life, yet now, when he was in my power, I could not plunge his weapon into his heart. Would it not be just, I thought, to drag him into the cave, and hurl him down the abyss he had intended for me? Yes; he certainly merited it; yet I could not do that either. I wished the snake a thousand times dead, yet I could not stamp it into the earth.