It wasn't till this moment that I remembered my weapons. So primitive were the passions that had been so suddenly whipped up within me that my vision had been one of tearing my enemy piecemeal with my nails and teeth. The memory of my pistol came to me like a shout of laughter. I stopped, and drew the darling weapon from my belt, and levelled it at my fleeing foe. My hand was shaky with excitement, and I was afraid I should miss. Taking as careful aim as I could I pulled the trigger and with a howl of evil joy was bounding forward again, for I saw him stumble and fall. He was soon up, however, but was limping in his run. Drawing my knife I sprang after him, gaining steadily, with the picture of my vengeance already vivid in my imagination. But he still ran well, and reaching the gap didn't risk a jump at it with his damaged leg. I saw where without pausing he rested his hand on a broken stump, and vaulted over the barrier. A moment, and I was at the place; and learning wisdom from my foe I didn't risk a fall by a wild leap, but slipping back my knife into my belt I rested my hand where he had taught me, and in my turn vaulted after him. But he was crouching there ready for me, as I might have guessed if my stupid rage hadn't stupefied my wits. Even as I leapt I saw him; but it was too late. He caught me a stunning buffet between the eyes; and with the vision before me of that dreadful face that still haunted my dreams, I fell senseless. CHAPTER XXII WORTHING ASKS QUESTIONS My memory is too blurred for me to write in any kind of consistent sequence of what followed. I know it was Worthing who found me lying stunned by the jetty and brought me back to some faint consciousness of reality as he had done that night at Sunset Towers. But it was as though the physical blow had numbed my very reason, for everything was stupidly confused in my mind. Mercifully so, I think; for I hadn't the sense to realize the desolating calamity that had befallen me. Even when I stood beside my dead father and gazed at the pallid face with that dreadful red gash yawning at the throat, I couldn't understand what had really happened. I think I even laughed as though some one were playing a clumsy joke, too extravagant to deceive me. And the sight of the black hollow in the woods where they laid him, tumbling the earth in upon him, didn't shake me from my leaden lethargy. Yet at my heart was a dull pain as though a wound were rankling deep within.