I reckon I nearly hanged him, for his neck jammed against the door, and I did not dare let go for fear he might withdraw himself and collapse on the wrong side.

I wanted him _in_side, and in a hurry.
He was about two-thirds unconscious when I seized him by his one long lock of hair and hauled him in, shutting the door again and leaning my weight against it, while I pried the noose free to save him from sure death.

Those cotton ropes don't render the way a hemp one would.

And while I was doing that a sickening, utterly unexpected sound announced that somebody outside the door had cautiously shot the bolt again! The Mahatma and I were both prisoners! I sat the old fellow down on a cushion in a corner and chafed his neck until the blood performed its normal office of revivifying him.

And as he slowly opened first one eye and then the other, instead of cursing me as I expected, he actually smiled.
"The quality of your mercy was rather too well strained," he said in English, "but I thank you for the offer nevertheless!" "Offer ?" I answered.