This, as Rudolph guessed, might be the man whose hand he had stepped on.
The stitches in the curtain became beads of light.

A shadowy arm heaved up, fell with a dry, ripping sound and a vertical flash.

A sword had cut the reeds from top to bottom.
Through the rent a smoking flame plunged after the sword, and after both, a bony yellow face that gleamed with sweat.

Rudolph, half wrapped in his matting, could see the hard, glassy eyes shine cruelly in their narrow slits; but before they lowered to meet his own, a jubilant yell resounded in the go-down, and with a grunt, the yellow face, the flambeau, and the sword were snatched away.
He lay safe, but at the price of another man's peril.

They had caught the crawling fugitive, and now came dragging him back to the lights.
Through the tattered curtain Rudolph saw him flung on the ground like an empty sack, while his captors crowded about in a broken ring, cackling, and prodding him with their pikes.