My fixed regard lost not one of her movements, while inch by
inch, not breathing, careful as the poise of a balance, I crawled. And
suddenly, with a rush, I was out in the open, running her down....
She leapt: perhaps two, perhaps three, paces she fled: then stock still
she stood--within some four yards of me--with panting nostrils, with
enquiring face.
I saw it all in one instant, and in one instant all was over. I had not
checked the impetus of my run at her stoppage, and I was on the point of
reaching her with uplifted knife, when I was suddenly checked and
smitten by a stupendous violence: a flash of blinding light, attracted
by the steel which I held, struck tingling through my frame, and at the
same time the most passionate crash of thunder that ever shocked a poor
human ear felled me to the ground. The cangiar, snatched from my hand,
fell near the girl's foot.
I did not entirely lose consciousness, though, surely, the Powers no
longer hide themselves from me, and their close contact is too
intolerably rough and vigorous for a poor mortal man.
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