Up and down on the pavement—bruised, bleeding, wrenched this way and that, but never letting go my hold, I felt my strength, already exhausted by the long toiling of the night, ebbing surely from me. Then in the moment of its final collapse the dreadful incubus was snatched from me, and I rose half-blinded to my feet to see Duke in the grasp of a couple of stalwart navvies, who on their way to work had come to my assistance.
Trapped and overcome, he made no further struggle, but submitted quietly to his captors, his chest rising and falling convulsively.
“Don’t let him go!” I panted; “he means murder!”
“We’ve got him fast enough,” said one burly fellow. “Any bones broke, master?”
“No,” said I; “I’m only a bit bruised.”
“Renny,” said the prisoner, in a low, broken voice, “have you ever known me lie?”
“Never. What then?”
“Tell them to take their hands off and I’ll go.”
“That won’t do. You may come back.”
“Not till the inquest’s over. Is that a fair offer? I can do nothing here now. I only ask one thing—that I may speak a word, standing at the gate, to that skulking coward yonder. I swear I won’t touch him or pass inside the gate.”