an to me, clasped my leg, and looked up at me; and the terror in his
eyes made me almost fear myself.

"Ensie, dear," I said, quite gently, grieving that he should see his
wicked father killed, "run up yonder round the corner, and try to find
a pretty bunch of bluebells for the lady." The child obeyed me,
hanging back, and looking back, and then laughing, while I prepared
for business. There and then I might have killed my enemy with a single
blow while he lay unconscious, but it would have been foul play.

With a sudden and black scowl, the Carver gathered his mighty limbs and
arose, and looked round for his weapons; but I had put them well away.
Then he came to me and gazed, being wont to frighten thus young men.

"I would not harm you, lad," he said, with a lofty style of sneering.
"I have punished you enough, for most of your impertinence. For the rest
I forgive you, because you have been good and gracious to my little son.
Go and be contented."

For answer I smote him on the cheek, lightly, and not to hurt him, but
to make his blood leap up. I would not sully my tongue by speaking to a
man like this.

I think he felt that his time was come; I think that he knew from my
knotted muscles and the firm arch of my breast, and the way in which I
stood, but most of all from my stern blue eyes, that he had found his
master. At any rate a paleness came, an ashy paleness on his cheeks, and
the vast calves of his legs bowed in as if he was out of training.

Seeing this, villain as he was, I offered him first chance. I stretched
forth my left hand, as I do to a weaker antagonist, and I let him have
the hug of me. But in this I was too generous; having forgotten my
pistol-wound, and the cracking of one of my short lower ribs. Carver
Doone caught me round the waist with such a grip as never yet had been
laid upon me.

I heard my rib go; I grasped his arm, and tore the muscle out of it (as
the string comes out of an orange); then I took him by the throat, which
is not allowed in wrestling, but he had snatched at mine; and now was
no time of dalliance. In vain he tugged and strained, and writhed, and
dashed his bleeding fist into my face, and flung himself on me with
gnashing jaws. Beneath the iron of my strength--for God that day was
with me--I had him helpless in two minutes, and his fiery eyes lolled out.

"I will not harm thee any more," I cried, so far as I could for panting,
the work being very furious. "Carver Doone,