With a slight cry, he glared over Jem's shoulder, as if he saw some one or something.
The feint took effect. For half an instant Jem relaxed his hold, and turned his head.
In that stroke of time the captain had freed one arm.
A knife flashed through the night and buried itself in Jem's breast. With a muffled cry and a gasp, he threw up his arms, then fell like a log on the sward.
Instantly the captain bent down, and, opening one thick, clammy hand, pressed into it the white, crushed lily which he wore in his buttonhole.
The dying man's hand closed on the flower, and his eyes opened, with a glare of hate and distrust. Then, as the light died out of them, the captain dragged the body of his accomplice and tool to the edge and hurled it over.
So short, though deadly, had been the struggle for the mastery that nothing, not a coat, or collar, was torn, and, after passing his handkerchief over his brow, he was about to hurry on, when he remembered the knife, which, in the excitement, had slipped from his hand.
He went on his hands and knees and searched carefully, but could not find it.
"It must have gone over with him," he muttered, and he decided, after a still more careful examination of the ground, that it had.
All further search for it was rendered impossible by the sound of footsteps.