Fear was in the cowed but cunning eyes as it moved backward, but when it had retreated for fifty yards or more it suddenly threw up its trunk in a defiant gesture, as of one released from a reluctant hypnotism, and commenced a rapid run toward the farther end of the valley.
As it did this, I realised that I was losing it, and that our lives and the success of our enterprise were at issue.
I unslung the axe from my back, and started in pursuit. But my feet sank deeply in the soft herbage, and I found that speed was impossible. At times, too, the ground itself gave way beneath me, and I stumbled forward with difficulty. Struggle as I might, I saw that the distance was increasing continually.
My companion’s mind called me to return, but I would not heed it.
Then I saw that she also was running, but far out on the left as though she were leaving me.
I was still wallowing forward in a stubborn stupidity when I realised her purpose. She was endeavouring to cut it off, and, running far more swiftly and lightly than either of us, she was soon in a position to do so.
But having gained the advantage, she appeared content to hold it, not closing in, but edging the chase continually toward the higher ground.
I did not understand her purpose till I found myself running upon the hard surface of the hillside, and gaining at every stride. The chased beast knew it also, and turned to face me.
My hunting instinct was roused now, to reinforce my judgment of a compelling necessity, and I was determined to kill it. But I had sufficient caution to pause outside the range of the sweeping trunk that threatened me.
It did not throw itself on its back, as I expected from the conflict which I had witnessed previously, and I began to realise that it had been running not so much to avoid me, as to carry the news to its masters. It might be in awe of my companion’s mind, but toward myself it very certainly had no such feeling.
I became aware that it was advancing upon me.
My companion had paused at a distance, and made no motion to assist me further.
The trunk was waving now within three feet of my face. I swung the axe as it was raised to strike. The sharp blade grazed the tip, and it winced back swiftly.
For some moments we faced each other silently, neither willing to retreat, nor to come within range of the confronting danger. I was on the point of springing in, and risking all on one stroke, when the memory of how the blue-black body had punctured where the claws tore, suggested that I could throw the axe with sufficient force to disable it.
But the throwing of axes is an occupation in which I was quite unpractised. Trying to fling it over the trunk that waved and feinted before me, and with sufficient force to effect my purpose, I misjudged entirely, so that it skimmed the smooth back only, and fell ten or twelve feet behind it.
Reckless, I ran forward to recover the weapon. My antagonist might easily have struck me off my feet as I did so, but it had turned also with the same object.
Not having to turn, I was a second quicker. I stooped for the axe with the consciousness that my opponent was already upon me, and as I seized it I threw it desperately backward.
The next moment I was struck to the ground. I felt the clothes tearing from my back, and turning round I tried to come to grips with the trunk which would otherwise beat the life from my body. As I did so I was conscious that the attack had ceased.
I looked up, and saw my companion standing above us. My antagonist cowed away from her with terrified eyes. The axe I had thrown had stuck into its back, and remained there.
Very quietly she took the haft and drew it out. As she did this a fountain of thin red blood, such as I had seen before, shot up and sparkled in the sunlight.
I rose up, and we stood side by side looking at the creature that made no more resistance, but lay dying before us.
She handed me the axe in silence.
A moment after, she gave me her hand again, and we returned to the trench together. But though I tried to speak, her mind would not answer. She had closed it against me, and for many hours we continued thus, her mind a blank wall of negation at the advances I made continually.
XVII
The Ethics of Violence
Dusk was already rising in the narrow trench, though the world was still bright with the colour of a sun that set early over the mountains, when she addressed me in the medium which is fifty times more swift than speech, and a thousand times more accurate in its transmission of the thoughts which form it.
“How could I answer you till there was peace in my own mind?” she asked me. “I was confused by violence. It is a thing we do not practise, either for defence or aggression. You appear to me to be partly as we are, and in part as the lower order of created things, and with such a body as is more base than either. For the first time in all my life I could not tell what was right to do—to withhold, or to aid you. It seems to me that you must have much sorrow.
“But now I have thought of what is right. It was to you that the charge was given. You were to avoid violence if it were possible. It
