However that may have been, in the question of brute courage Dupont had yet to prove lacking.  His every instinct was an Apache’s:  left to himself he would strike always from behind, and run like a cur to cover.  But cornered, or exasperated by opposition to his vast powers—­something which he seemed quite unable to understand—­he could fight like a maniac.  He was hardly better now, when he found himself thrown off and attacked in turn at a time when he believed his antagonist to be pinned down, helpless, at the mercy of the weapon for which he was fumbling.  And the murderous fury which animated him then more than made up for want of science, cool-headedness and imagination.

They fought for their most deeply-rooted passions, he to kill, Lanyard to live, Dupont to batter Lanyard into conceding a moment of respite in which a weapon might be used, Lanyard to prevent that very thing from happening.  Even as animals in a pit they fought, now on their knees straining each to break the other’s hold, now wallowing together on the floor, now on their feet, slogging like bruisers of the old school.

Dupont took punishment in heroic doses, and asked for more.  Shedding frightful blows with only an angry shake of his head, he would lower it and charge as a wild boar charges, while his huge arms flew like lunatic connecting-rods.  The cleverest footwork could not always elude his tremendous rushes, the coolest ducking and dodging could not wholly escape that frantic shower of fists.

Time and again Lanyard suffered blows that jarred him to his heels, time and again was fain to give ground to an onslaught that drove him back till his shoulders touched a wall.  And more than once toward the end he felt his knees buckle beneath him and saw his shrewdest efforts fail for want of force.  The sweat of his brows stung and dimmed his eyes, his dry tongue tasted its salt.  He staggered in the drunkenness of fatigue, and suffered agonies of pain; for his exertions had strained the newly knitted tissues of the wound in his side, and the hurt of this was wholly hellish.

But always he contrived somehow, strangely to him, to escape annihilation and find enough in reserve to fly back at Dupont’s throat upon the first indication of desire on the part of the latter to yield the offensive.  To do less were to permit him to find and use his weapon, whatever it might be—­whether knife or pistol was besides the issue.

Chairs, the chaise-longue, tables were overturned and kicked about.  Priceless bits of porcelain and glass, lamps, vases, the fittings of the dressing-table were cast down in fragments to the floor.

Constrained to look to herself or be trampled underfoot, and galvanized with terror, the woman struggled up and tottered hither and yon like a bewildered child, in the beginning too bemused to be able to keep out of the way of the combatants.  If she crouched against a wall, battling bodies brushed her away from it.  Did she take refuge in a corner she must abandon it else be crushed.  Once she stumbled between the two, and before Lanyard could thrust her aside Dupont had fallen back half a dozen feet and worried a pistol out of his clothing.