brance of it flashed like a streak of lightning through his brain.

Before he knew what he was doing, almost as if a will swifter than his
own were at work, he had sprung upon Hunt-Goring and struck him a
swinging blow across the shoulders.

Only that one blow, however! For Hunt-Goring was not an easy man to
thrash. Ten years before, he had been the strongest man in his regiment,
and he was powerful still. Before Noel could strike again, he was locked
in an embrace that threatened to crush him to a pulp.

In awful silence they strained and fought together, and in a second or
two it came to Noel through the silence that he had met his match. The
Irish blood in him leaped exultant to the fray. He laughed a breathless
laugh, and braced his muscles to a fierce resistance. He had been
spoiling for a fight with this man for a long time.

But it was impossible to do anything scientific in that
constrictor-like hold, and as they swayed and strove he began to realize
that unless he could break it, it would very speedily break him.
Hunt-Goring's face, purple and devilish, with lips drawn back and teeth
clenched upon his cigarette, glared into his own. There was something
unspeakably horrible about the eyes. They turned upwards, showing the
whites all shot with blood.

"The man's a maniac!" was the thought that ran through Noel's brain.

His heart had begun to pump with painful hammering strokes. Not much of
a fight this! Rather a grim struggle for life against a power he could
not break. He braced himself again to burst that deadly grip. In his
ears there arose a great surging. He felt his own eyes begin to start.
By Heaven! Was he going to be squeezed to death ignominiously on the
strength of that single blow? He gathered himself together for one
mighty effort--the utmost of which he was capable--to force those iron
arms asunder.

For about six seconds they stood the strain, holding him like a vice;
then very suddenly they parted--so suddenly that Noel almost staggered
as he drew his first great gasp of relief. Hunt-Goring reeled--almost
fell--back against the wall of the bungalow. The sweat was streaming
down his forehead. His face was livid. His eyes, sinister and awful,
were turned up like the eyes of a dead man. He was chewing at his
cigarette with a ceaseless working of the jaws indescribably horrible to
watch.

Noel realized on the instant that the struggle was over, with small
satisfaction to either side. He stoo