Tom recoiled before the blazing eyes of his adversary. He was big and hefty enough, but no match for the well-proportioned, muscular giant before him. He was good at assessing physical values, and he felt scared.
“She’s mine,” he said. “I won her.”
Angela, crouching at the end of the room, saw the storm brewing. She suddenly remembered the knife, and retrieved it lest one of the trio should lay hands on it. She saw Connie and his silent friend edging behind Jim, and one quick glance from Tom’s vile face told her that the three were filled with a common purpose. Connie suddenly snatched up a log of wood.
“Jim!” she cried, as the three men suddenly sprang forward.
The big figure moved like a streak of lightning. Tom was caught by two powerful arms and lifted clean off his feet. He hung for one brief second, six inches from the ground, and then executed an arc in thin air to come down with a crash 146 against the match-boarded wall. The other two were close upon him. He dealt with the log-swinging man first. Connie’s arm was already raised and the thick piece of wood was on the point of coming down. Had it descended, the Honorable Angela might have been a widow there and then, but a fifty-inch leg prevented that untimely catastrophe. It came out from Jim’s thigh, true in the horizontal plane, and smote Connie in the tenderest part of his anatomy. He made no sound whatever, but dropped in a crumpled heap and lay still. The silent man was caught in mid-air. He had never expected the amazingly quick movement of the arms that held him. He was a miserable specimen, physically, and turned green when he saw the big fist drawn back to strike.
“No, you ain’t big enough to hit,” said Jim. “You seem to like me; come closer honey, come close!”
He gathered the man close in and, exerting all his strength, crushed every atom of breath from the man’s body. Angela, sick with the sight of this animal manifestation, protested.
“You’ll kill him! He never did me any harm.” 147
Jim dropped his victim with a grunt. A queer reaction set in. He was sorry. He could have rescued her without this horse-play, but the sight of her in the arms of a human chimpanzee, who knew no morality but that of the cave-man, had aroused all the innate fury within him. After all, he loved her! Even though she despised him, and preferred the company of licentious beachcombers, he worshiped her. The very thought seemed to mock at him from within.
“Do I have to yank you back, or will you come freely?” he said in a low voice.