In the meanwhile, Tsuya pulled herself to her feet, and brought him down by sweeping his feet off the ground. Again, there ensued a fierce, closed struggle. Wounded as he was, he was more than her match. She was at last pinned down, flat on her back, hands closing around her neck to choke out her life. A particle more of strength left in the wounded man, and she would have been dead, straightway. Tokubey’s strength had carried him thus far, but no farther; suddenly he felt himself sapped of force.
“Come, what are you doing, Shin san?” Tsuya called out for help, straining her half-choked voice.
“—He’s killing me!—Don’t you see here is our chance, to-night?—Finish this Tokubey—this dog’s dying, anyway,—and it means we’ll be free—no more bother—you as well as me. Never a better chance to crack his head!—For heaven’s sake, come!—come and get him—”
Even while she went on trying to shriek out her appeal, her life seemed fast sinking, her voice grew fainter and ever fainter, until every second threatened to crop it short, once for all.
“Fiend you! Oh, I’m choking! Help me, Shin san!” Her voice was good yet for that another shriek.
Scarce had she spent out her breath, before Shinsuké drove the knife, the spoil of a moment ago, into the back of the man placed astride her fallen body. Little worse for the blow, the other shot himself into his arms, kicking, battering, biting, ripping with nails, in frenzied rage. Shinsuké did not experience such resistant force when he killed Santa or the boatman’s woman. Nor were they always on their feet. Rolling and tumbling, dragged in dirt and pulled by hair, the two men fought on what appeared a fight of neither men nor beasts. It was after some moments that Shinsuké, almost by chance, buried his knife into the flabby side of his foe.
“He—he—here, Tsuya! I die, but my curse be on your head!” With this outburst on his lips, Tokubey gave a convulsive shudder. In the same instant, a second blow was sent through his heart. One sharp whine of pain, hanging yet on the other’s arms, he stiffened.
“What of the curse of a gutter rat! Serves you right, too!” said Tsuya.
“It’s the third one I’ve killed! I am damned!—For heaven’s sake, die with me, now!” Shinsuké said, when he had shoved the corpse off, having freed himself from the dead man’s clutch; his jaw sagged, in an uncontrollable tremble.
“What talk, man! If that’s what you do, what’s the sense of killing this man? You have gone down deep enough, why not stay there and take all good things coming your way? Who will know this thing, if we keep our mouths shut? Why this chicken-hearted idea? Come, you buck up. I don’t want to die,—no, never!”