animent of a piercing
shriek. Pierre's pistol went off, but he had evidently been stricken
between the shoulders; the ball went wild, and the pistol itself
dropped from his hand, another cartridge exploding as it hit the floor.
The next instant Pierre tumbled headlong through the hole, landing upon
Loge, who, not braced for the shock, went down himself.

As the two men struggled to rise a strange figure precipitated itself
from the room above, feet first, and hit both of them, knocking them
down again. It was a tall man, thin and lank, clad only in a suit of
silk pajamas of the color known as baby blue; he was barefoot, and
Cleggett, with that lucid grasp of detail which comes to men oftener in
nightmares than in real life, noticed that he had a bunion at the large
joint of his right great toe.

If the man was startling, he was no less startled himself. Leaping from
the struggling forms of Pierre and Loge, who defeated each other's
frantic efforts to rise, he was across the barroom in three wild
bounds, shrieking shrilly as he leaped; he bolted through the west door
and cleared the verandah at a jump.

Loge, gaining his feet, was after the man in blue in an instant,
evidently thinking no more of Cleggett than if the latter had been in
Madagascar. And as for Cleggett, although he might have shot down Loge
a dozen times over, he was so astonished at what he saw that the
thought never entered his head. He had, in fact, forgotten that he
held a pistol in his hand. Pierre scrambled to his feet and followed
Loge.

Cleggett, running after them, saw the man in the blue pajamas sprinting
along the sandy margin of the bay. But Loge, his hat gone, his coat
tails level in the wind behind him, and his large patent leather shoes
flashing in the morning sunlight, was overhauling him with long and
powerful strides. Cleggett saw the quarry throw a startled glance over
his shoulder; he was no match for the terrible Loge in speed, and he
must have realized it with despair, for he turned sharply at right
angles and rushed into the sea. Loge unhesitatingly plunged after him,
and had caught him by the shoulder and whirled him about before he had
reached a swimming depth. They clinched, in water mid-thigh deep, and
then Cleggett saw Loge plant his fist, with scientific precision and
awful force, upon the point of the other's jaw. The man in the blue
pajamas collapsed; he would have dropped into the water, but Loge
caught him as