In vain I struck and tore and wrenched: he seemed to have no flesh to bruise, no bones to break; a thing of steel and hide had not been more impervious to blows. His fetid breath was on my face, his cruel eyes were close to mine; it was a very nightmare of a fight, in which all skill and knowledge counted for nothing and were powerless to avail.
Thus to and fro we swayed like one, first this way and then that, until my strength and breath began to fail by reason of the hopeless, stifling struggle. With one last desperate wrench I tried in vain to cast the clinging demon from me. His bony hand shot out and gripped me by the throat, his left leg wound about my right, I staggered for a moment, then fell crashing backward. My head struck something hard, the moon shot zigzag down the sky, and with it went the grinning face of Tubal Ammon. Black darkness followed.
CHAPTER IX
The Shadow of Death
"Coome, now, zur, another soop o' this and you'm a man agen."
The words fell on my muffled ears as though the voice were calling from a distance; then the murmur of the sea broke in upon me like a sullen roar, as, with a wild, bewildering rush I rose to life again.
And thus I found that I was sitting up (or lolling like a sack of flour were better words for it), with a knee and arm behind me, while my head, which ached abominably, lay back upon a shoulder. So much I made out in that first dim gleam of consciousness, but for the rest of it I was still half-dazed and could not think.
"Another drop--joost one, zur," urged the voice again.
Something (a leathern bottle, as I found out afterwards) was pressed against my lips. I drew upon it with a will, then nearly choked. Hot, burning stuff it was, that sent the blood a-dancing through my veins like wildfire.
"Brandy!" I gasped, as soon as breath would let me.