Throughout the rest of the day, he stalked the other. DuChane was too wary to be taken off guard. He was even supplied with rations--the delicacies Marlin had brought from camp with which to feed the girl when she regained consciousness. He saw DuChane put occasional morsels into her mouth. She swallowed, mechanically but eagerly. Toward evening, Marlin was sure he heard her utter a few hesitant syllables in answer to DuChane's low-voiced remarks. He kept up the siege through the night, hoping to slip down unobserved and creep up on the other man, but the night happened to be one in which the moons were both in evidence. Their radiance was sufficient to give the alert DuChane warning of his approach. The one thing to his advantage was an unusually high tide. It drove DuChane and his charge up the slope to a position beneath the overhanging ledge. Studying the situation by the first rays of the morning sun, Marlin decided on a plan of action. He gained a vantage point as nearly as possible above the two. By hurling himself over the ledge, he might be able to overcome the other in a surprise attack. Waiting until the murmur of voices below indicated that DuChane was at least partly off guard, he poised himself, spear in hand, then leaped. It was a fall of a good twelve feet. He landed on all fours on the sloping descent, the jar breaking his hold on his spear. A sharp pain stabbed up one leg. DuChane sprang to his feet, spear upraised, but Marlin charged toward him without hesitation. The jagged point of the spear pierced his side, but he plowed on, forcing the other back up the slope by sheer fury of the onslaught. Again they were at close grips, gouging, tearing, surging back and forth across the slope. Once DuChane gained a strangle hold on Marlin's throat. Fingers, hard and cruel as talons, sank deep into his windpipe. Mustering all his energy, Marlin broke the hold by forcing the other back against the rock wall and pounding his head against the jagged surface. They broke apart, Marlin gasping for breath, DuChane shaking his shaggy head to clear it. Then, with the fury of desperation, Marlin stumbled back to the fray. This time DuChane met the attack by hurling his body down upon him with the force of a catapult. They hurtled down the slope together, but Marlin was beneath, and the crash of landing knocked the breath from his body. DuChane scrambled for his spear, but when Marlin tried to rise, he found his muscles too weak to obey the demand of his will. He was faint from loss of the blood which gushed from his torn side, and the pain stabbing up from his ankle was rising to the threshold of consciousness with unbearable intensity. With glazing eyes, he looked up to see DuChane poised for the kill. The spear-arm hesitated. Through a throbbing haze of waning consciousness, Marlin heard the other man's voice. "I don't want to kill you--Dave. What about it? Will you go your way and leave us in peace?"