"Caught!" said Mr. Landale, slowly, pausing over each word as though to prolong the savour of it in his mouth, "caught this time! And it is your mistress's hand that puts the noose round your neck. That is what I call poetical justice."
The prostrate man, collecting his scattered wits and his vast strength, made a violent effort to spring to his feet. But Rupert's whole weight was upon him, his long thin fingers were gripping him by each shoulder, his face grinned at him, close, detested, infuriating. The grasp that held him seemed to belong to no flesh and blood, it was as the grasp of skeleton hands, the grinning face became like a death's head.
"I shall come to your hanging, Captain Jack Smith, or rather, Mr. Hubert Cochrane of the Shaws."
These were the last words of Rupert Landale. A red whirl passed through the sailor's brain, his hands fell like lashes round the other's neck and drew it down. If Hubert Cochrane dies so does Rupert Landale: that throat shall never give sound to that name again.
Over and over they roll like savage beasts, but yet in deathly silence. For the pressure of the fingers on his gullet, fingers that seem to gain fresh strength every moment and pierce into his very flesh, will not allow even a sigh to pass Rupert's lips, and Jack can spare no atom of his energy from the fury of fight: not one to spare even for the hearing of the frantic knocks at the door, the calls, the hammering at the lock, the desperate efforts without to prise it open.
But if Rupert Landale must die so shall Hubert Cochrane, and by the hangman's hand, treble doomed by this. The same thought fills both these men's heads; the devil of murder has possession of both their souls. But, true to himself to the last, it is with Rupert a calculating devil. The officers must soon be here: he will hold the scoundrel yet with the grasp of death, and his enemy shall be found red-handed—red-handed!
His hatred, his determination of vengeance, the very agony of the unequal struggle for life gave him a power that is almost a match for the young athlete in his frenzy.
The dying efforts of his victim tax Jack's strength more than the living fight; but his hands are still locked in their fatal clutch when at last, with one fearful and spasmodic jerk, Rupert Landale falls motionless. Then exhaustion enwraps the conqueror also, like a mantle. He, too, lies motionless with his cheek on the floor, face to face with the corpse, dimly conscious of the voluptuousness of victory. But the dead grasp still holds him by the wrists, and it grows cold now, and rigid upon them. It is as if they were fettered with iron.
Lady Landale's dread of her once despised kinsman, now that she knew what a powerful weapon he held in his hands, this night, was almost fantastic.