th. Neither the call of freedom nor the threat of prison
could keep him from wreaking vengeance now. Without a sound he was at
Mercer's throat, and the scream ended in a choking shriek. His fingers
dug into flabby flesh, and his clenched fist beat again and again into
Mercer's face.

He went to the ground, crushing the human serpent under him. And he
continued to strike and choke as he had never struck or choked another
man, all other things overwhelmed by his mad desire to tear into pieces
this two-legged English vermin who was too foul to exist on the face of
the earth.

And he still continued to strike--even after the path lay clear once
more between him and the river.

CHAPTER X

What a terrible and inexcusable madness had possessed him, Kent
realized the instant he rose from Mercer's prostrate body. Never had
his brain flamed to that madness before. He believed at first that he
had killed Mercer. It was neither pity nor regret that brought him to
his senses. Mercer, a coward and a traitor, a sneak of the lowest type,
had no excuse for living. It was the thought that he had lost his
chance to reach the river that cleared his head as he swayed over
Mercer.

He heard running feet. He saw figures approaching swiftly through the
starlight. And he was too weak to fight or run. The little strength he
had saved up, and which he had planned to use so carefully in his
flight, was gone. His wound, weeks in bed, muscles unaccustomed to the
terrific exertion he had made in these moments of his vengeance, left
him now panting and swaying as the running footsteps came nearer.

His head swam. For a space he was sickeningly dizzy, and in the first
moment of that dizziness, when every drop of blood in his body seemed
rushing to his brain, his vision was twisted and his sense of direction
gone. In his rage he had overexerted himself. He knew that something
had gone wrong inside him and that he was helpless. Even then his
impulse was to stagger toward the inanimate Mercer and kick him, but
hands caught him and held him. He heard an amazed voice, then
another--and something hard and cold shut round his wrists like a pair
of toothless jaws.

It was Constable Carter, Inspector Kedsty's right-hand man about
barracks, that he saw first; then old Sands, the caretaker at
Cardigan's place. Swiftly as he had turned sick, his brain grew clear,
and his blood distributed itself evenly again through his body. He held
up his hands