was really a woman; his real form was only hidden
under embodiment of a man, but what it was he did not know. And
Sweyn's real form he did not know. Sweyn lay fallen at his feet,
where he had struck him down--his own brother--he: he stumbled
over him, and had to overleap him and race harder because she who
had kissed Sweyn leapt so fast. "Sweyn, Sweyn, O Sweyn!"

Why did the stars stop to shudder? Midnight else had surely come!

The leaning, leaping Thing looked back at him with a wild, fierce
look, and laughed in savage scorn and triumph. He saw in a flash
why, for within a time measurable by seconds she would have
escaped him utterly. As the land lay, a slope of ice sunk on the
one hand; on the other hand a steep rose, shouldering forwards;
between the two was space for a foot to be planted, but none for a
body to stand; yet a juniper bough, thrusting out, gave a handhold
secure enough for one with a resolute grasp to swing past the
perilous place, and pass on safe.

Though the first seconds of the last moment were going, she dared
to flash back a wicked look, and laugh at the pursuer who was
impotent to grasp.

[Illustration: The Finish]

The crisis struck convulsive life into his last supreme effort;
his will surged up indomitable, his speed proved matchless yet. He
leapt with a rush, passed her before her laugh had time to go out,
and turned short, barring the way, and braced to withstand her.

She came hurling desperate, with a feint to the right hand, and
then launched herself upon him with a spring like a wild beast
when it leaps to kill. And he, with one strong arm and a hand that
could not hold, with one strong hand and an arm that could not
guide and sustain, he caught and held her even so. And they fell
together. And because he felt his whole arm slipping, and his
whole hand loosing, to slack the dreadful agony of the wrenched
bone above, he caught and held with his teeth the tunic at her
knee, as she struggled up and wrung off his hands to overleap him
victorious.

Like lightning she snatched her axe, and struck him on the neck,
deep--once, twice--his life-blood gushed out, staining her feet.

The stars touched midnight.

The death scream he heard was not his, for his set teeth had
hardly yet relaxed when it rang out; and the dreadful cry began
with a woman's shriek, and changed and ended as the yell of a
beast. And before the final blank overtook his dying eyes, he saw
that She gave place to I