He grasped and struck at this enemy in a blind instinct of self-preservation.
He had now and then another impulse–to some day take his savings of many years, secreted here, and go to some other country, assume another name, and lead a different life.
And now, while an unsuspected enemy was waiting for him to enter a sleep that should know no waking, he left his cave and seated himself on a shelf-like projection close to the lake, which was deep here, and the ledge shore a sheer face rising some ten feet above the water.
One hour or more this strange compound of brute and man sat there contemplating the stars, and then he suddenly detected a sound–only a faint one, the mere click of one pebble striking another.
He arose and listened.
Soon another soft, crushing sound reached him. Some animal creeping along in the passage between the ledges, he thought.
He stepped quickly to the end of the shelf. On that instant a crouching form rose upward and confronted him.
He had one moment only, but enough to see a tall man a step below him, the next a flash of spitting fire, a stinging pain in one shoulder, and this human panther leaped upon McGuire!
But life was sweet, even to McGuire, and as he grasped and struck at this enemy in a blind instinct of self-preservation as both closed in a death-grapple, one instant of awful agony came to him as a knife entered his heart–a yell of mingled hate and deadly fear, as two bodies writhed on the narrow shelf, a plunging sound, as both struck the water below–and then silence.
Death and vengeance were clasped in one eternal embrace.