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Stout, Rex, 1886-1975

"Under the Andes"

My arm
seemed to have the strength of a hundred arms; it swung the heavy
club as though it had been a feather, and with deadly accuracy.
Harry fought like a demon. I think I did all that a man could
do, but he did more, and withal more coolly. I brought down my
club on heads, shoulders, chests, and rarely failed to get my
man.
But the impact of Harry's blows was like the popping of a Maxim.
I saw him reach over and grasp the throat of one who had his
teeth set in my shoulder, and, holding him straight before him
with his arm extended, break his neck with one blow. Again, his
club descended on one black skull with a glancing blow and shot
off to the head of another with the force of a sledge-hammer.
At the time I did not know that I saw these things; it was all
one writhing, struggling, bloody horror; but afterward the eyes
of memory showed them to me.
Still they came. My arm rose and fell seemingly without order
from the brain; I was not conscious that it moved. It seemed to
me that ever since the beginning of time I had stood in that
butcher's doorway and brought down that bar of gold on thick,
black skulls and distorted, grinning faces.


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