rrible cry he plunged forward. He lurched
heavily as he sought to drag his feet from the viscid muck. At every
effort he sank deeper. At last he hurled himself full length upon the
surface of the reeking mire. He cried aloud, but no one answered him.
Under his body he felt the yielding crust cave. He clutched at the
surface grass, but he only plucked the tufts from their roots. They gave
him no hold.

The silent figures on the path watched his death-struggle. It was
ghastly--horrible. The expression of their faces was fiendish. They
watched with positive joy. There was no pity in the hearts of the
Breeds.

They hearkened to the man's piteous cries with ears deafened to all
entreaty. They simply watched--watched and reveled in the watching--for
the terrible end which must come.

Already the murderer's vast proportions were half buried in the slimy
ooze, and, at every fresh effort to save himself, he sank deeper. But
the death which the Breeds awaited was slow to come. Slow--slow. And so
they would have it.

Like some hungry monster the muskeg mouths its victims with oozing
saliva, supping slowly, and seemingly revels in anticipation of the
delicate morsel of human flesh. The watchers heard the gurgling mud,
like to a great tongue licking, as it wrapped round the doomed man's
body, sucking him down, down. The clutch of the keg seemed like
something alive; something so all-powerful--like the twining feelers of
the giant cuttle-fish. Slowly they saw the doomed man's legs disappear,
and already the slimy muck was above his middle.

The minutes dragged along--the black slime rose--it was at Lablache's
breast. His arms were outspread, and, for the moment, they offered
resistance to the sucking strength of the mud. But the resistance was
only momentary. Down, down he was drawn into that insatiable maw. The
dying man's arms canted upwards as his shoulders were dragged under.

He cried--he shrieked--he raved. Down, down he went--the mud touched his
chin. His head was thrown back in one last wild scream. The watchers saw
the staring eyes--the wide-stretched, lashless lids.

His cries died down into gurgles as the mud oozed over into his gaping
mouth. Down he went to his dreadful death, until his nostrils filled and
only his awful eyes remained above the muck. The watchers did not move.
Slowly--slowly and silently now--the last of him disappeared. Once his
head was below the surface his limpened arms followed swiftly.

Th