"Same place as the other?" he asked in the same indifferent tone.
"Don't fool with me," I cried.
But he did. Just as he seemed about to toss the oar to the side of the other, he swung it round and thrust it violently into the pit of my stomach.
A fool in my unpreparedness I staggered, my pistol dropped from my hand, and the next instant he was back on the wharf with his hand at my throat.
CHAPTER XXIV
FROM PERIL TO PERIL
Gassen was a very heavily built man as well as much more muscular than I; and I should not have had one chance in ten against him in a struggle, even had the conditions been equal.
But they were anything but equal. I had allowed myself to be caught at such a disadvantage that the fight was as good as finished even before it had begun. At the mere force of his rush upon me I went down like a throttled puppy, choking vainly for breath as his fingers played a lively tune on my windpipe.
I knew that he meant to have my life; and I have never been so near death as when I lay staring helplessly up into his eyes, ablaze with the joy of victory and drunk with the lust for vengeance.
My first effort was a desperate attempt to drag his hands from my throat; but although I put out all my strength and squirmed and wriggled and twisted to elude his grip, I could do nothing. His arms were twice as thick as mine and quite as hard; and to stop the twistings of my body he knelt on me, pressing his knees into my ribs and stomach until I thought the bones would crack.