“Come on, you snake!” he gritted. “No quarter! I’ll make you pay for what you did to me. You lily-fingered murderer, you! See if you can fight a white man’s way!”
Van Arsdale sprang forward, murder in his eye. O’Brien read it there and laughed a laugh that was like the flick of a whip across the face of the man before him.
It was not O’Brien’s first fist-fight. Many and many the time he had encountered men his equal in size and strength on the mat, but in the long nights in the frozen north O’Brien had met men of many kinds and races, and his joyful laugh and ready wit and square open nature had made him many friends. From one and another he had learned tricks worth remembering: the feint, the unexpected stoop, the rush and instant withdrawal.
And as the struggle went on up there far above the sea, jewels worth a king’s ransom under their scuffling feet, the fog close about them, the punctured bag doubling and flopping overhead, and here and there the small steel muzzles that yearned to speak their short, sudden summons of death, as they fought on and on it became apparent that at last O’Brien had met his match.
He could despise Van Arsdale, could hate him, but O’Brien had to acknowledge that the man could fight. O’Brien was rushing. All his fighting was offensive. Van Arsdale, on the defensive, parried and sidestepped O’Brien’s bull-like rushes.
O’Brien couldn’t rid himself of the idea that Van Arsdale was fighting for time. It puzzled the detective, but with the one idea of administering a drubbing that would forever mark his cold and handsome adversary O’Brien fought on while the fog slowly cleared and the dirigible hung low between the supporting ships.
The little wind that had been blowing from the north grew suddenly stronger, and as a curtain rolls up and is forgotten, so the thick fog disappeared and left the strange group swinging over the sea that washed the white cliffs of England. They shone in the morning sunlight, and on the gray sea beneath a schooner rocked lazily.
Van Arsdale, buffeted against the rail by one of O’Brien’s sledge-hammer blows, saw the schooner and his heart leaped. He knew that the two ships supporting the dirigible in which they were fighting were slowly seeking a lower level. It was not a killing height from the sea if he could manage to hit the water right. O’Brien, hammering one blow after another, was punishing him badly, but he was also returning enough blows to keep O’Brien from landing a knockout. Once in awhile O’Brien would land a slashing blow on his face. He felt the bridge of his nose crack under a terrific slam, and a moment later it crashed in. One eye was closing. Again, in a moment when both rested for breath, Van Arsdale measured the distance to the sea. He knew the schooner would pick him up, and safe in his pocket rested the check for three million dollars.
He was growing tired. O’Brien rushed him again and with the quickness of light Van Arsdale slipped his left hand in his breast. There was a narrow silvery flash as the hand lifted and came down straight for O’Brien’s heart. Van Arsdale knew where to strike and knew he could not miss as he leaned lightly forward. He had meant this ending but somehow could not bring it about sooner. The knife descended in a true path, but something happened. Eyes as quick as Van Arsdale’s own watched under O’Brien’s set brows, and with a leap he writhed aside. The razor-edged blade slid through the slack of his coat, and instantly O’Brien had clasped his man in the Indian wrestler’s grip.
There was a moment of mighty effort, when the trained muscles gathered and tightened to their task. Then all at once the watcher there heard a strange crackling snap, as Van Arsdale was lifted high over O’Brien’s head and went whirling down, and down, and down, a limp and grotesque figure that met the tumbled sea and disappeared beneath the waves forever.