tive
voice of the barrack square. With the fitful docility of the
mad, Janaway obeyed, and directly he did so Lawrence checked and
stood on the defensive, taking a moment to collect his wits--he
had need of them: he had to make his head guard his hands. He
was a tall powerful man, but so was the shepherd: to offset
Hyde's science, Janaway was mad and would be stopped by no
punishment short of a knock-out blow: and Lawrence carried only
an ordinary walking-stick, while Janaway had hold of an upright
from a bit of iron railing, five feet long and barbed like a
spear.

"If he whacks me over the head with that or jabs it into my
stomach, I'm done," Lawrence thought, and pat to the moment
Janaway, his mouth open and his teeth bare, rushed on him and
struck at his eyes. Lawrence parried and sprang aside: but his
arm was jarred to the elbow. "That was a close call. Ha! my
chance now . . ." Like a flash, as Janaway turned, Lawrence
ran in to meet him body to body, seized him by the lapels of his
coat, pinned down his arms, set one foot against his thigh, and
with no great exertion of strength, by the Samurai's trick of
falling with one's enemy, heaved him up and shot him clean over
his own shoulder: then, as they dropped together, struck with his
wrist a paralysing blow at the base of the spine. Janaway's yell
of fury was choked into a rattling groan.

Lawrence was up in a twinkling, but the shepherd lay where he had
fallen, and Lawrence let him lie: he knew that, so handled, the
victim could be counted out of action, perhaps for good and all.
He stood erect, breathing deep. Ben could wait, but what of Mrs.
Ben? He was shocked to find Isabel already at her side on the
reddened turf.

Mechanically Lawrence picked up his stick before he went to join
her. Clara was huddled up over a pool of blood, her head between
her knees: not a pleasant sight for a young girl. But Isabel,
though white and trembling, was collected. "I can't feel her
heart, I--I'm afraid--"

She broke off. Her glance had travelled beyond Lawrence and her
features were stiffening into a mask of fear. "Oh, the dog, the
dog!" she pointed past him. "Billy, Billy, down, sir!"

From some eyrie on the hillside the Dane had watched without
emotion the legitimate spectacle of his master beating his
mistress: in the war of the sexes, a dog is ever on the man's
side. But when the tables were turned Billy went to the rescue.
He was coming round the