A Double Knot

by George Manville Fenn

“At last!” he panted with a savage laugh, and then lay helpless. He had overtaken his enemy, the creature who had blasted his life, maddened him, and robbed him of his fame and all he loved, and now he was helpless as a child.

For a time there was the hoarse panting of their laboured breath, and the eyes of the two men alone engaged in deadly strife; their limbs were completely paralysed. The sun sank lower, casting the shadows of the pines across them, and, emboldened by the silence, the furze chats twittered here and there, while from the distance came the soft mellow caw of a rook in homeward flight. Then from the dry grass hard by came the shrill crisp chizz of the grasshopper, and soft and deep from the clump of firs the low rattling whir of the evejar preparing for its hawking flight round the trees in quest of the moths and beetles that formed its fare.

But one thing in the soft evening beauty seemed to accord with the passions and hellish fury of the two men, and that was the low hiss and writhing shape of a short thick viper which glided slowly from beneath one tuft of heath where it had been driven by the coming footsteps, to seek its lurking-place beneath another.

For fully twenty minutes, panting, heated, exhausted, did the two men lie there, glaring into each other’s eyes. Once only did the hunted move, and his hand stole softly towards his breast-pocket; but it was pinioned on the instant, and he lay prone, waiting his time.

Meanwhile the sobbing hoarse murmur of their breathing grew more subdued, the heavy beating of their hearts more even, and the great drops of sweat ceased to trickle down from neck and temple, to coalesce, and then drop upon the grass. The feeling of helplessness, of paralysed muscles, passed away, and with the fire in his eye growing fiercer as he felt his strength returning, John Huish uttered a sigh of content as he told himself that he could now crush out the life of the creature who had destroyed his happy life.

The sun sank lower as he gazed down at the face beneath him. It was like looking at his own angry countenance in a mirror, and for the moment he was startled; but that passed away, for the thought of Gertrude came like a flash through his insane brain.

It was for vengeance.

“Devil!” he cried hoarsely; and with one sharp movement he struck at the prostrate man.

The latter had seen the change in his countenance, and was prepared for the assault. With the activity of a panther he seized the coming hand, and throwing up his chest as he bent his spine like a bow, he tried to throw his adversary off, and then a deadly struggle began.

At this moment there was little difference in the physical power of the two adversaries. Huish, though, from his position had the advantage, one that he fought hard to keep. At first it seemed that he would lose it, for, having somewhat recovered from his horror and fear of death, the hunted man threw the strength he had been husbanding into his first effort, flung John Huish aside, and nearly escaped. His advantage, however, was but a matter of minutes, for Huish steadily held on, and he was never able to rise to his feet. The grass was crushed down, the purple heather broken, and the sand torn up, while, growing giddy and weak with his exertions, the old fear came back, and once more the man lay prone upon his back, gazing up into Huish’s relentless eyes, and shuddered at the remorseless countenance he saw.