corner of the cottage when Isabel caught
sight of him, travelling in great bounds at the pace of a wolf,
but silent. Lawrence had but just time to swing Isabel behind
him before the Dane leapt for his throat. Lawrence struck him
over the head, but the blow glanced: so sudden, so thundering
came the impact that Lawrence all but went down under it: and
once down. . . .

The great jaws snapped one inch from his cheek, and before the
Dane could recover Lawrence had seized him by the throat and
fought him off. Then Lawrence set his back against the cottage
wall and felt safer. A second blow got home, and spoilt Billy's
beauty for ever: it laid open his left eye and the left side of
his jaw. Undaunted, the Dane gave himself an angry shake, which
spattered Lawrence with blood, and gathered his haunches for a
second spring. But by now Lawrence had clubbed his stick and was
beating him about the head with its heavy knobbed handle. Swift
as the dog was, the man was swifter: they fought eye to eye, the
man forestalling every motion of the dog's whipcord frame:
Lawrence's blood was up, he would have liked to fight it out
bare-handed. They would not have been ill-matched, for when the
Dane reared Lawrence overtopped him only by an inch or so, and
the weight of the steelclad paws on his breast tore open his
clothes and pinned him to the wall. But Lawrence thrashed him
off his feet whenever he tried to rise, till at length the lean
muzzle sank with a low baffled moan.

Even then there was such fell strength in him that Lawrence dared
not spare him, and blow rained on blow.--"Don't kill him," said
Isabel. "Put this over his head."

Lawrence took the length of serge she gave him and with
characteristic indifference to danger stooped over the dog, whose
spirit he admired, and tried to swathe his head in its heavy
folds. But, torn, blinded, baffled, the Dane was undefeated. He
wrenched his jaws out of their mufflings and rolled his head from
side to side, snapping right and left. "Oh Billy," cried Isabel,
"you know me, lie down, dear old man!" A pure-bred dog when sight
and hearing are gone will recognize a familiar scent. In an
agony of pity Isabel flung her arm over the heaving shoulders--

"Don't!" Lawrence dragged her off, but too late: the Dane's teeth
had snapped on her wrist. The next moment he was lying on his
side with his brains beaten out. Lawrence was willing to spare
his own enemy but not Isabel's.