For one awful minute neither man moved; then the patrol, with the horror in his face as of one who looks upon a thing of another world, gave a hoarse scream which was swallowed up in the roar of the sea. Richard did not know what an uncanny sight he made rising up from that grave with his hair unkempt, his face like ashes, and a burial cloth still bound about his jaws. He comprehended only that detection threatened, and detection meant death. With one bound he cleared the grave between them, and grappled with the guard. Under other circumstances he would have been no match for the man, starved and weak as he was; but desperation--that fierce, mad desire to live--gave him strength. It was not so much he as that aroused demon within him that gave back the patrol's blows, struck the gun from his hands, and finally gripped him about the throat. Not a word was said, not a cry was uttered, as they tossed and swayed backward and forward, to the right or left, sank on one knee and rose again to stagger and struggle anew. If Richard could keep that strangling hold, the fight was his, and with it the liberty for which he longed; if the other man could break it, then life would pay the forfeit. Doggedly he hung on, though his fingers strained and his head reeled, while the other beat him about the body and shoulders with blows that began to lose their force, for that iron grip upon his windpipe was telling at last. Richard was literally choking the life out of him. Backward he went--backward--until the muscles in his chest swelled, and the joints of his back and shoulders cracked--still backward, with everything dark before him. Then suddenly his knees collapsed, and he went down to the sand in a shapeless huddle. But even then Richard did not let go his hold; deeper, and yet deeper his fingers sank into the flesh under them, until not a quiver was left in the insensible limbs. Then finally he stood up and looked upon his work. God! he had committed murder. [Illustration: "FOR A LONG MINUTE HE STOOD THERE, TREMBLING, HORROR-STRICKEN."]