PUNCTURED LUNG MOMENT

The fourth man had drawn a knife either to stab at Ru or to kill
Nefra; but when he saw the fate of his fellows all courage left him
and, screaming with fear, he let fall the knife and fled away. Ru
snatched the knife from the sand and hurled it after him. A yell of
pain told him that his aim was true, though because of the shadows he
could no longer see the man.

Yet some while later a sick and sorry man with a bandaged back, who

from time to time coughed up blood as though from a pierced lung,
staggered into the Court at Tanis, where his face was known, and being
admitted, told his tale to a great officer, who listened to it
wrathfully and commanded a scribe to write it down word for word. When
it had finished that officer cursed this man because he had failed in
his mission.

So they threw him out, and to hell or elsewhere he went very shortly.
For that knife of his which Ru had cast after him with so good an aim
was poisoned. Moreover, it had struck him beneath the shoulder and
pierced his lung.



Henry Rider Haggard, Queen of the Dawn.