There was a level space of sward between us and the slough. With the courtesy derived from London, and the procession I had seen, to this place I led him. And that he might breathe himself, and have every fibre cool, and every muscle ready, my hold upon his coat I loosed, and left him to begin with me whenever he thought proper.
I think he felt that his time was come. I think he knew from my knitted muscles, and the firm arch of my breast, and the way in which I stood, but most of all from my stern blue eyes, that he had found his master. At any rate, a paleness came, an ashy paleness on his cheeks, and the vast calves of his legs bowed in, as if he were out of training.
Seeing this, villain as he was, I offered him first chance. I stretched forth my left hand as I do to a weaker antagonist, and I let him have the hug of me. But in this I was too generous; having forgotten my pistol-wound, and the cracking of one of my short lower ribs. Carver Doone caught me round the waist with such a grip as never yet had been laid upon me.
I heard my rib go; I grasped his arm and tore the muscle out of it[2] (as the string comes out of an orange); then I took him by the throat, which is not allowed in wrestling, but he had snatched at mine; and now was no time of dalliance. In vain he tugged and strained and writhed, dashed his bleeding fist into my face, and flung himself on me with gnashing jaws. Beneath the iron of my strength--for God that day was with me--I had him helpless in two minutes, and his fiery eyes lolled out.
[2]A far more terrible clutch than this is handed down, to weaker ages, of the great John Ridd.--ED. L.D.
"I will not harm thee any more," I cried, so far as I could for panting, the work being very furious: "Carver Doone, thou art beaten; own it, and thank God for it; and go thy way, and repent thyself."
It was all too late. Even if he had yielded in his ravening frenzy--for his beard was like a mad dog's jowl--even if he would have owned that for the first time in his life he had found his master, it was all too late.
The black bog had him by the feet; the sucking of the ground drew on him, like the thirsty lips of death. In our fury we had heeded neither wet nor dry, nor thought of earth beneath us. I myself might scarcely leap, with the last spring of o'erlabored legs, from the engulfing grave of slime. He fell back, with his swarthy breast (from which my grip had rent all clothing), like a hummock of bog-oak, standing out the quagmire; and then he tossed his arms to heaven, and they were black to the elbow, and the glare of his eyes was ghastly. I could only gaze and pant; for my strength was no more than an infant's from the fury and the horror. Scarcely could I turn away, while, joint by joint, he sank from sight.