I came upon a good road, at last, and followed it, still running,
though a pain in my side warned me that soon I must halt. All my hunters
had abandoned the chase now but one. Every time I half turned for a
backward look, I saw this one coming after me. He had dropped his
weapons, and so had enabled himself to keep up the chase. Not being
weakened by a previous swim in the Seine, he was in better form than I,
and I knew that he would catch me in time. And what then? He was a large
fellow, but since the struggle must come, I would better let it come ere
I should be utterly exhausted. So I pretended to stagger and lurch
forward, and presently came to my knees and then prone upon the ground.
With a grunt of triumph, the man rushed up to me, caught me by the collar
of my doublet, and raised me from the ground. Hanging limp, and
apparently senseless, I put him quite off his guard.
"Stand up!" he cried. "Stomach of the Pope! Have I come so far only to
take a dead man back?"
While he was trying to make me stand, I suddenly gathered all my energy
into my right arm and gave him a quick blow in the pit of the stomach.
With a fearful howl, he let me go and fell upon his knees. A blow in the
face then made him drop as limp as I had pretended to be; and I resumed
my flight, this time at a more leisurely pace.
And now all my physical powers seemed to be leaving me. Pains racked my
head, and I seemed at one time to freeze and burn all over, at another
time to freeze in one part and burn in another.
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