If ever the Lord in the moment of supreme peril gave courage and self-control, these good and perfect gifts were mine in that evening's strife. With the first plunge he had thrown me, and he was struggling to free his hand from my grasp to get at my throat; his knee was on my chest.
"You're in my land now," he hissed in my ear.
"Yes, but this is Phil Baronet still," I answered with a calmness so dominant, it stayed the struggle for a moment. I was playing on him the same trick by which he had so often deceived us,—the pretended relaxation of all effort, and indifference to further strife. In that moment's pause I gained my lost vantage. Quick as thought I freed my other hand, and, holding still his murderous grip from my throat, I caught him by the neck, and pushing his head upward, I gave him such a thrust that his hold on me loosened a bit. A bit only, but that was enough, for when he tightened it again, I was on my feet and the strife was renewed—renewed with the fierceness of maddened brutes, lashed into fury. Life for one of us meant death for the other, and I lost every humane instinct in that terrible struggle except the instinct to save Marjie first, and my own life after hers. Civilization slips away in such a battle, and the fighter is only a jungle beast, knowing no law but the unquenchable thirst for blood. The hand that holds this pen is clean to-day, clean and strong and gentle. It was a tiger's claw that night, and Jean's hot blood following my terrific blow full in his face only thrilled me with savage courage. I hurled him full length on the stone, my heavy cavalry boot was on his neck, and I would have stamped the life out of him in an instant. But with the motion of a serpent he wriggled himself upward; then, catching me by the leg, he had me on one knee, and his long arms, like the tentacles of a devil-fish, tightened about me. Then we rolled together over and under, under and over. His hard white teeth were sunk in my shoulder to cut my life artery. I had him by the long soft hair, my fingers tangled in the handfuls I had torn from his head. And every minute I was possessed with a burning frenzy to strangle him. Every desire had left my being now, save the eagerness to conquer, and the consciousness of my power to fight until that end should come.
We were at the cliff's edge now, my head hanging over; the blood was rushing toward my clogging brain; the sharp rock's rim, like a stone knife, was cutting my neck. Jean loosened his teeth from my shoulder, and his murderous hand was on my throat. In that supreme crisis I summoned the very last atom of energy, the very limit of physical prowess, the quickness and cunning which can be called forth only by the conflict with the swift approach of death.
Nature had given me a muscular strength far beyond that of most men. And all my powers had been trained to swift obedience and almost unlimited endurance. With this was a nervous system that matched the years of a young man's greatest vigor. Strong drink and tobacco had never had the chance to play havoc with my steady hand or to sap the vitality of my reserve forces. Even as Jean lifted me by the throat to crush my head backward over that sharp stone ledge, I put forth this burst of power in a fierceness so irresistible that it hurled him from me, and the struggle was still unended. We were on our feet again in a rage to reach the finish. I had almost ceased to care to live. I wanted only to choke the breath from the creature before me. I wanted only to save from his hellish power the victims who would become his prey if he were allowed to live.
Instinct led me to wrestle with my assailant across the ledge toward the wall that shut in about the sanctuary, just as, a half-year before, on our "Rockport" fighting ground, I strove to drag him through the bushes toward Cliff Street, while he tried to fling me off the projecting rock. And so we locked limb and limb in the horrible contortion of this savage strife. Every muscle had been so wrenched, no pain or wound reported itself fairly to the congested brain. I had nearly reached the wall, and I was making a frantic effort to fling the Indian against it. I had his shoulder almost upon the rocky side, and my grip was tight about him, when he turned on me the same trick I had played in the early part of this awful game. A sudden relaxation threw me off my guard. The blood was streaming from a wound on my forehead, and I loosed my hold to throw back my long hair from my face and wipe the trickling drops from my eyes. In that fatal moment my mind went blank, whether from loss of blood or a sudden blow from Jean, I do not know. When I did know myself, I seemed to have fallen through leagues of space, to be falling still, until a pain, so sharp that it was a blessing, brought me to my senses. The light was very dim, but my right hand was free. I aimed one blow at Jean's shoulder, and he fell by the cliff's edge, dragging me with him, my weight on his body. His left hand hung over the cliff-side. I should have finished with him then, but that the fallen hand, down in the black shadows, had closed over a knife sticking in the crevice just below the edge of the bluff—Jean Le Claire's knife, that had been flung from O'mie's grip as he fell.
I caught its gleam as the half-breed flashed it upward in a swift stab at my heart and my breath hung back. I leaped from him in time to save my life, but not quickly enough to keep the villainous thing from cutting a long jagged track across my thigh, from which spurted a crimson flood. There could be only one thing evermore for us two. A redoubled fury seized me, and then there swept up in me a power for which I cannot account, unless it may be that the Angel of Life, who guards all the passes of the valley of the shadow, sometimes turns back the tide for us. A sudden calmness filled me, a cool courage contrasting with Jean's frenzy, and I set my teeth together with the grip of a bulldog. Jean had leaped to his feet as I sprang back from his knife-thrust, and for the first time since the fight began we stood apart for half a minute.
"I may die, but I'll never be cut to death. It must be an equal fight, and when I go, Jean Pahusca, you are going with me. I'll have that knife first and then I'll kill you with my own hands, if my breath goes out at that same instant."
There must have been something terrible in my voice for it was the voice of a strong man going down to death, firm of purpose, and unafraid.
The feel of the weapon gave the Indian renewed energy. He sprang at me with a maniac's might. He was a maniac henceforth. Three times we raged across the narrow fighting ground. Three times I struck that murderous blade aside, but not without a loss of my own blood for each thrust, until at last by sheer virtue of muscle against muscle, I wrenched it from Jean's hand, dripping with my red life-tide. And even as I seized it, it slipped from me and fell, this time to the ledges far below. Then hell broke all bounds for us, and what followed there in that shadowy twilight, I care not to recall much less to set it down here.