agility. He was animated by a convulsive energy, a volcanic outburst
characteristic of the obsession of monomania.

The strife continued for an astonishing, an absurd, length of time.
Woolfolk became infuriated at his inability to bring it to an end, and
he expended an even greater effort. Nicholas' arms were about his
chest; he was endeavoring by sheer pressure to crush Woolfolk's
opposition, when the latter injected a mounting wrath into the
conflict. They spun in the open like a grotesque human top, and fell.
Woolfolk was momentarily underneath, but he twisted lithely uppermost.
He felt a heavy, blunt hand leave his arm and feel, in the dark, for
his face. Its purpose was to spoil, and he caught it and savagely bent
it down and back; but a cruel forcing of his leg defeated his
purpose.

This, he realized, could not go on indefinitely; one or the other
would soon weaken. An insidious doubt of his ultimate victory lodged
like a burr in his brain. Nicholas' strength was inhuman; it increased
rather than waned. He was growing vindictive in a petty way--he tore
at Woolfolk's throat, dug the flesh from his lower arm. Thereafter
warm and gummy blood made John Woolfolk's grip insecure.

The doubt of his success grew; he fought more desperately. His
thoughts, which till now had been clear, logically aloof, were blurred
in blind spurts of passion. His mentality gradually deserted him; he
reverted to lower and lower types of the human animal; during the
accumulating seconds of the strife he swung back through countless
centuries to the primitive, snarling brute. His shirt was torn from a
shoulder, and he felt the sweating, bare skin of his opponent pressed
against him.

The conflict continued without diminishing. He struggled once more to
his feet, with Nicholas, and they exchanged battering blows, dealt
necessarily at random. Sometimes his arm swept violently through mere
space, at others his fist landed with a satisfying shock on the body
of his antagonist. The dark was occasionally crossed by flashes before
Woolfolk's smitten eyes, but no actual light pierced the profound
night of the upper hall. At times their struggle grew audible,
smacking blows fell sharply; but there was no other sound except that
of the wind tearing at the sashes, thundering dully in the loose tin
roof, rocking the dwelling.

They fell again, and equally their efforts slackened, their grips
became more feeble. Finally, as if by common consent, t