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* (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.

     * A far more terrible clutch than this is handed down, to
     weaker ages, of the great John Ridd.—­Ed.

“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’er-laboured legs, from the engulfing grave of slime.  He fell back, with his swarthy breast (from which my gripe 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.

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CHAPTER LXXV

GIVE AWAY THE GRANDEUR

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When the little boy came back with the bluebells, which he had managed to find—­as children always do find flowers, when older eyes see none—­the only sign of his father left was a dark brown bubble, upon a newly formed patch of blackness.  But to the center of its pulpy gorge the greedy slough was heaving, and sullenly grinding its weltering jaws among the flags and the sedges.

With pain, and ache, both of mind and body, and shame at my own fury, I heavily mounted my horse again, and, looked down at the innocent Ensie.  Would this playful, loving child grow up like his cruel father, and end a godless life of hatred with a death of violence?  He lifted his noble forehead towards me, as if to answer, “Nay, I will not”:  but the words he spoke were these:—­