I took a short, heavy stick from the rack and, crossing the stackyard, vaulted over the palings into the park, purposely avoiding the gate. About a hundred yards in front Mr. Marx was walking quickly along, with both hands in his ulster pockets, and looking frequently around him. Men had been busy in the park on the previous day cutting the bracken, and along the side of the road were many stacks of it waiting to be carted away. I noticed that whenever Mr. Marx drew near one of these he gave it a wide berth and I smiled to myself at this evidence of his anxiety.
I was walking on the turf, that he might not hear my footsteps, and was able to keep him easily in sight, for it was a clear, frosty evening, and the full moon was shining in a cloudless sky. At a sudden bend in the road he came in sight of a place where stacks of bracken had been left on either side opposite to each other. I saw him pause as though hesitating which he should avoid, and at the same moment I distinctly saw some dark body crouched down behind one of them and swaying slightly backwards and forwards.
I broke at once into a run, but before the echoes of my warning shout had died away a figure sprang like a wild cat at Mr. Marx’s throat. There was a flash and a sharp report, but from the direction of the former I could see that the revolver had been knocked up into the air and exploded harmlessly.
When at last I reached the assailant and his victim it was a fearful sight I looked upon. The face of the lunatic was ghastly and his wild eyes almost started from their sockets in his rage.
White and emaciated as a skeleton’s, his face was still capable of expression—and such an expression. A frenzied desire to kill seemed to be his sole aim, and his long, skinny fingers clutched Mr. Marx’s throat as in a vice. The latter’s eyeballs were protruding from his head and his breath was coming in short, agonised pants; yet all the while Mr. Marx was holding the madman in such a fierce grip that I could hear his ribs snapping like whalebone.
My arrival saved Mr. Marx from a speedy death by strangulation. Though I lifted the lunatic up in my arms and strained every muscle to pull him away, his fingers never relaxed till I stopped his breath and rendered him momentarily unconscious.
I waited for Mr. Marx to come to himself, my foot resting lightly upon the prostrate body of his assailant. Soon he rose slowly to his feet and began groping about in the road.
“What do you want?” I asked. “Lost anything?”
“My revolver.”
I pointed to where it lay gleaming in the moonlight. He picked it up and set it to an undischarged barrel. I watched him curiously.