The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: stroke; on the contrary, he did little more than tap continually
at his adversary's head, pecking at it with the pole-axe end
of the axe as a woodpecker {Endnote 7} pecks at rotten wood.
Presently a peck would go home, and his enemy would drop down
with a neat little circular hole in his forehead or skull, exactly
similar to that which a cheese-scoop makes in a cheese. He never
used the broad blade of the axe except when hard pressed, or
when striking at a shield. He told me afterwards that he did
not consider it sportsmanlike.
Good and his men were quite close by now, and our people had
to cease firing into the mass for fear of killing some of them
 Allan Quatermain |