Mok not only trod with the softness and swiftness of a panther, but he had eyes like that animal, and if there were any light at all, those eyes could make good use of it.  As he neared the two men, he saw that one was scolding the other.  Then he saw the other man drop down on his knees.  Then, being still nearer, he perceived that the man on his knees was Cheditafa.  Then he saw the man in front of him draw a knife from under his coat.

As a rule, Mok was a coward, but two glasses of beer were enough to turn his nature in precisely the opposite direction.  A glass less would have left him timorous, a glass more would have made him foolhardy and silly.  He saw that somebody was about to stab his old friend.  In five long, noiseless steps, or leaps, he was behind that somebody, and had seized the arm which held the knife.

With a movement as quick as the stroke of a rattlesnake, Banker turned upon the man who had clutched his arm, and when he saw that it was Mok, his fury grew tornado-like.  With a great oath, and a powerful plunge backward, he endeavored to free his arm from the grasp of the negro.  But he did not do it.  Those black fingers were fastened around his wrist as though they had been fetters forged to fit him.  And in the desperate struggle the knife was dropped.

In a hand-to-hand combat with a chimpanzee, a strong man would have but little chance of success, and Mok, under the influence of two glasses of beer, was a man-chimpanzee.  When Banker swore, and when he turned so that the light of the street lamp fell upon his face, Mok recognized him.  He knew him for a Rackbird of the Rackbirds—­as the cruel, black-eyed savage who had beaten him, trodden upon him, and almost crushed the soul out of him, in that far-away camp by the sea.  How this man should have suddenly appeared in Paris, why he came there, and what he was going to do, whether he was alone, or with his band concealed in the neighboring doorways, Mok did not trouble his mind to consider.  He held in his brazen grip a creature whom he considered worse than the most devilish of African devils, a villain who had been going to kill Cheditafa.

Every nerve under his black skin, every muscle that covered his bones, and the two glasses of beer, sung out to him that the Rackbird could not get away from him, and that the great hour of vengeance had arrived.

Banker had a pistol, but he had no chance to draw it.  The arms of the wild man were around him.  His feet slipped from under him, and instantly the two were rolling on the wet pavement.  But only for an instant.  Banker was quick and light and strong to such a degree that no man but a man-chimpanzee could have overpowered him in a struggle like that.  Both were on their feet almost as quickly as they went down, but do what he would, Banker could not get out his pistol.

Those long black arms, one of them now bared to the shoulder, were about him ever.  He pulled, and tugged, and swerved.  He half threw him one instant, half lifted the next, but never could loosen the grasp of that fierce creature, whose whole body seemed as tough and elastic as the shoes he wore.