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All the time he was speaking his fork was busy clearing the stalls of their litter, and, at the finish, he leant on the haft of it and quizzically smiled into the girl's beautiful, half-troubled face. Joan contemplated protesting, but somehow his manner was so friendly, so frank and honest, that she felt it would be ungracious of her.
"It is very hard stone," he said. "I have scarcely made a mark upon it." He worked for some time, and then let Bertie take the pick. The lad struck a blow with all his strength, and then dropped the pick with a loud cry, wringing his hands as he did so. "You have jarred your hands, Bertie; you should not hold the haft so tightly." "It did sting!" Bertie said.
Out of a proper piece, I might be able to make some sort of a handle that would serve to hold the blade, so that I might still cut with it. The encouragement which this idea gave me, once more roused my mind to new activity, and I set to thinking how I might make a new haft for the broken blade.
It may be purchased at hardware supply depots in the form of strips an inch and a half wide, by one-thirty-second thick, and is much easier to work than the tempered variety. Then taking three-eighths number .22 gauge steel or brass tubing, we smash it to a short bevel on the anvil, file off the corners and cut it to a length of an inch and three-quarters. This makes the haft or socket.
A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!"
Yoshitsune severed the haft of the grapnel with his sword and deliberately picked up the bow. Asked why he had imperilled his person for a mere bow, he replied, "Had it been a bow such as my uncle Tametomo bent, its falling into the enemy's possession would not matter; but a weak bow like mine would give them something to laugh at."
And they both fell sideways, the madman's hand still clenching the haft of the poniard in his death-grip. It was over in a hand-turn, and the two who had died so terribly together had taken their quarrel with them to the last judgment seat.
Then he stretched his left arm once or twice as if to make sure of it, licked the haft of the knife, and nodded at her. She instantly put out the lamp. All was dark save for a faint thread of light which outlined the door. Across the thread something moved once twice. The sound of picking ceased.
So much the best for us would it be if the tomahawks left the hands that were drawn back to throw, if the knives that were flourished in our faces should be buried to the haft in our hearts, that we courted death, striving with word and look to infuriate our executioners to the point of forgetting their former purpose in the lust for instant vengeance. It was not to be.
Among these was this twanging bow with its light shaft, better fitted for a child's plaything than for real work among men. As for him, give him a heavy spear, with the blade well set in thongs, or a heavy ax, with the head well clinched in the sinew-bound wooden haft. There was rarely miss or failure to the spear-thrust or the ax-stroke.
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