The latter was by far the most likely, and as the stranger whoever he was, was unarmed, don Ramon felt that he had no longer any cause for fear. Though his sword--in its scabbard--was lying on the table, his dagger was in his belt. With a quick movement he unsheathed it, and at the precise moment when the masked man had his back to him in order to relock the door, don Ramon--dagger in hand--made a swift and sudden dash for him. But the stranger had felt rather than seen or heard the danger which threatened him. As quick as any feline creature he turned on his assailant and gripped his upraised hand by the wrist with such a vice-like grip that don Ramon uttered a cry of rage and pain: his fingers opened out nervelessly and the dagger fell with a clatter to the ground. Then the two men closed with one another. It was a fight, each for the other’s throat--a savage, primitive fight--man against man--with no weapon save sinewy hands, hatred and the primeval instinct to kill. The masked man was by far the more powerful and the more cool. Within a very few moments he had don Ramon down on his knees, his own strong hands gripping the other’s throat. The Spaniard felt that he was doomed: he--of that race which was sending thousands of innocent and defenceless creatures to a hideous death--he, who had so often and so mercilessly lent a hand to outrage, to pillage and to murder, who but a few moments ago was condemning two helpless girls to insults and outrage worse than death, was in his turn a defenceless atom in the hands of a justiciary. The breath was being squeezed out of his body, his limbs felt inert and stiff, his mind became clouded over as by a crimson mist. He tried to call for help, but the cry died in his throat. And through the mist which gradually obscured his vision he could still see the silhouette of that closely-hooded head and a pair of eyes shining down on him through the holes of the leather mask. "Let me go, miscreant," he gasped as for one moment the grip on his throat seemed to relax. "By heaven you shall suffer for this outrage." "’Tis you will suffer," said the other coldly, "even as you would have made two helpless and innocent women suffer." "They shall suffer yet!" cried don Ramon with a blasphemous oath, "they and their kith and kin--aye! and this accursed city which hath given _you_ shelter! Assassin!" "And it is because you are such an abominable cur," came a voice relentlessly from behind the leather mask, "because you would hunt two unfortunates down, them and their kith and kin and the city that gave them shelter, that you are too vile to live, and that I mean to kill you, like I would any pestilential beast that befouled God’s earth. So make your peace with your Creator now, for you are about to meet Him face to face laden with the heavy burden of your infamies."