Yet, with but a fraction of an inch to spare, he turned to face the oncoming human whirlwind.  This time he did not dart back from the rush.  Perhaps he did not care to.  Perhaps there was not time.

Instead, with the speed of light, he stepped in, ducking the hammer-fist and plying both hands with bewildering quickness and skill, in a shower of half-arm blows at the beach comber’s heart and wind.  His strength was wiry and carefully developed, but it was no match for his foe’s.  Yet the hail of body-punches was delivered with all the effect that science and a perfect knowledge of anatomy could compass.

The beach comber grunted and writhed in sharp discomfort.  Then, he did the one thing possible, by way of reprisal.  Before Brice could dodge out of his close-quarters position, the other clasped him tight in his bulgingly powerful arms, gripping the lighter man to his chest in a hug which had the gruesome force of a boa-constrictor’s, and increasing the pressure with all his weight and mighty strength.

There was no space for maneuvering or for wriggling free.  Clear from the ground Brice’s feet were swung.  The breath was squeezed out of him.  His elastic strength was cramped and made useless.  His lungs seemed bursting.  The pressure on his ribs was unbearable.  Like many a better man he was paying the price for a single instant of overconfidence.

One arm was caught against his side.  The other was impeded and robbed of all efficient hitting power, being pinioned athwart his breast.  And steadily the awful pressure was increased.  There was no apparent limit to the beach comber’s powers of constriction.  The blood beat into Brice’s eyes.  His tongue began to protrude from a swollen throat.

Then, all at once, he ceased to struggle, and lay limp and moveless in the conqueror’s grasp.  Perceiving which, the beach comber relaxed the pressure, to let his conquered enemy slide, broken, to the ground.

This, to his blank amaze, Gavin Brice neglected to do.  The old ruse of apparent collapse had served its turn, for perhaps the millionth time.  The beach-comber was aware of a lightning-quick tensing of the slumped muscles.  Belatedly, he knew what had happened, and he renewed his vise-grip.  But he was too late.  Eel-like, Gavin had slithered out of the imprisoning arms.  And, as these arms came together once more, in the bear-hug, Brice shot over a burning left-hander to the beach-comber’s unguarded jaw.  Up flew the big arms in belated parry, but not soon enough to block a deliberately-aimed right swing, which Brice drove whizzing into the jaw’s point.

The brace of blows rocked the giant, so that he reeled drunkenly under their dynamic force.  The average man must have been floored and even knocked senseless by such well-directed smashes to so vital a spot.  But the beach-comber merely staggered back, seeking instinctively to guard his battered face, and to regain his balance.