In the Name of the People

by Arthur W. Marchmont

Again I realized that he was the better man and that I was going to be beaten. By a very clever movement he got me again at a terrible disadvantage. I was holding on to his throat when he twisted to one side, drew his knees up with a sudden jerk and thrust one of his feet into the pit of my stomach with such force as to drive the wind clean out of me. My grip on his throat relaxed and I fell back sick and dizzy and beaten.

Only the merest luck saved my life then. As I fell, my hand came in contact with the revolver and I gripped it and pulled the trigger. Even as the shot flashed, he was on to me; and he wrenched the weapon from me, and pulled the trigger three or four times at my head in the hope that there was still a cartridge left.

Maddened with rage and disappointment he raised it and tried to strike me on the head; but I had sense enough to protect myself with my arms, and then my rage began to lend me strength. I grappled with him again, and as the effects of the kick passed off and I recovered my wind, I renewed the fight.

I was in a very different mood now. He had attempted to take my life and I no longer tried merely to exhaust his strength. I fought like a madman. For the moment, indeed, I was mad, crazed with blood lust, white-hot for revenge.

Disappointment at finding the weapon, which he had striven so frantically to gain, useless, disheartened him; his strength was nearly used up and he had no passion left to answer to that which burned like a fever in me.

I got him under me again, my left hand fastened on his throat while I dashed my fist again and again into his face, finding a brutal pleasure in the punishment I inflicted, until his resistance weakened and he lay still and helpless.

Then I rose and sat on the berth, breathing hard and watching him as if he were some dangerous wild beast who had mauled me and from whose fangs I had only just escaped with my life—as indeed I had.

I was not seriously hurt. That kick of his had only winded me. My arms were painful from the blows I had received from the revolver in shielding my head, but they were only bruised, and I had every cause to be glad matters were no worse.

Nor was my opponent badly injured. His face was damaged and his lips swollen and bleeding, but the blood was chiefly from his nose; and he soon recovered sufficiently to sit up.

His first movement brought me to my feet, but he had no strength left to make any fight. Moreover my own rage had cooled and, to tell the truth, I was a little ashamed of my savagery; so I made no effort to interfere with him.