en. He may yield, and in that case he is hurled helpless over his
adversary's shoulder, or he may resist, with the result that the tendons
are torn from his lacerated arm and he faints in agony.

Such was the master hold gained by M. Paul in the first minute of the
struggle; long and carefully he had practiced this coup with a wrestling
professional. It never failed, it could not fail, and, in savage triumph,
he prolonged his victory, slowly increasing the pressure, slowly as he felt
the tendons stretching, the bones cracking in this helpless right arm. A
few seconds more and the end would come, a few seconds more and--then a
crashing, shattering pain drove through Coquenil's lower heart region, his
arms relaxed, his hands relaxed, his senses dimmed, and he sank weakly to
the ground. His enemy had done an extraordinary thing, had delivered a
blow not provided for in Jitsu tactics. In spite of the torsion torture,
he had swung his free arm under the detective's lifted guard, not in
Yokohama style but in the best manner of the old English prize ring, his
clenched fist falling full on the point of the heart, full on the unguarded
solar-plexus nerves which God put there for the undoing of the vainglorious
fighters. And Coquenil dropped like a smitten ox with this thought humming
in his darkening brain: "_It was the left that spoke then_."

[Illustration: "He prolonged his victory, slowly increasing the pressure."]

As he sank to the ground M. Paul tried to save himself, and seizing his
opponent by the leg, he held him desperately with his failing strength; but
the spasms of pain overcame him, his muscles would not act, and with a
furious sense of helplessness and failure, he felt the clutched leg
slipping from his grasp. Then, as consciousness faded, the brute instinct
in him rallied in a last fierce effort and _he bit the man deeply under the
knee_.

When Coquenil came to himself he was lying on the ground and several
policemen were bending over him. He lifted his head weakly and looked about
him. The stranger was gone. The automobile was gone. And it all came back
to him in sickening memory, the flaunting challenge of this man, the fierce
struggle, his own overconfidence, and then his crushing defeat. Ah, what a
blow that last one was with the conquering left!

And suddenly it flashed through his mind that he had been outwitted from
the first, that the man's purpose had not been at all what it seemed to be,
that a hand