"Get up!" he panted hoarsely. "I've got you now."
Garman rose on tottering legs and came on. He could not fight any longer, but he could blaspheme, and the foulest curses rolled from his lips. Finally he uttered Annette's name. Roger set himself and drove his fist to the point of the heavy, fat jaw. And as a marionette falls when its suspending strings are cut, so Garman collapsed and lay a huge, shapeless heap in the reddened sand.
XXXV
Hours later Roger found himself on the bank of the river far below Garman's house. He had wandered wildly, avoiding paths, dodging clearings, holding to dark, shaded jungle-land, like a hurt animal seeking to hide its wounds from the light of day. The joy of victory over Garman glowed steadily in his bosom, yet though he knew that Garman now was a broken man and that he no longer would attempt to play king in the district, he also knew that the fruits of the victory were like ashes upon his tongue. He felt old and defeated, like a man suddenly robbed of his illusions. Garman had been right; he had been dwelling in the Fool's Paradise of Youth, accepting dreams for realities. Now, he had "torn the mask of illusions from the face of Life and seen the old hag as she really is."
Garman's phrases kept ringing in his ears, and with repetition they came to hold a note of mocking triumph.
Garman was whipped, yet he had won. His words remained to cut and torture. In his state of semidelirium Roger began to doubt that he had won over Garman. The doubt became a certainty. Defeat, not victory, was his portion. Garman's was the victory, the victory of bitter knowledge over the vaporish ideals of youth.
Roger stooped to drink from a clear pool at the river's brink and shrank back at the reflection he beheld in the water. A strange, lined face stared up at him. He shut his eyes as he drank, then plunged his head into the pool. Cooled off and cleansed, he again studied his reflection. The traces of dust and combat were washed away, and he saw how little they had to do with the transformation. The change was deeper than the skin, deeper than the flesh. It had bitten into the spirit; and the bitterness and hate in his eyes, the cynical sneer that leered up at him, sprang from the change that had taken place in his soul.
Garman was still winning.
Roger laughed aloud, and at the sound of his voice checked himself abruptly. He turned away from the pool, cursing it for what it had revealed, and stumbled back into the darkness of the jungle.
In time he came to the spot where he and Garman had fought. His enemy was gone. It was some minutes before Roger realized how this disappointed him. He had returned to tell Garman he was right. He no longer hated Garman. Garman made him see the truth.