It could not last. John Bruce felt his knees giving way beneath him. He had under-estimated Crang's resistance to the over-dose of drug. Crang was the stronger--and seemed to be growing stronger every instant. Or was it his own increasing weakness? Crang's fist with a short-arm jab smashed at John Bruce's wounded side once more. The man struck nowhere else--always, with the cunning born of hell, at the wounded side. John Bruce dug his teeth into his lips. A wave of nausea swept over him. He felt his senses leaving him, and he clung now to the other, close, tight-pressed, as the only means of protecting his side. He forced himself then desperately to a last effort. There was one chance left, just one. In the livid face, in the hot, panting breath with which the other mouthed his hideous profanity, there was murder. Over his shoulder, barely a foot away, John Bruce glimpsed the staircase. He let his weight sag with seeming helplessness upon Crang. It brought Crang around in a half circle. Crang's back was to the stairs now. John Bruce let his hands slip slowly from their hold upon the other, as though the last of his strength was ebbing away. He accepted a vicious blow on his wounded side as the price that he must pay, a blow that brought his chin crumpling down upon his breast--and then with every ounce of remaining strength he hurled himself at Crang, and Crang's foot stumbled out into space over the topmost stair, and with a scream of infuriated surprise the man pitched backward. John Bruce grasped with both hands at the banister for support. Something went rolling, rolling, rolling down the stairs with queer, dull thumps like a sack of meal. His hands slipped from the banister, and he sat limply down on the topmost step and laughed. He laughed because that curious looking bundle at the bottom there began a series of fruitless efforts to roll back up the stairs again. And then the front door opened. He could see it from where he sat, and Paul Veniza--that was Paul Veniza, wasn't it?--stepped into the room below, and cried out, and ran toward the bundle at the foot of the stairs. John Bruce felt some one suddenly hold him back from pitching down the stairs himself, but nevertheless he kept on falling and falling into some great pit that grew darker and darker the farther he went down, and this in spite of some one who tried to hold him back, and--and who had a face that looked like Claire's, only it was as--as white as driven snow. And as he descended into the blackness some one screamed at him: “I'll finish you for this!” And screamed it again--only the voice kept growing fainter. And--and then he could neither see nor hear any more. ***** When John Bruce opened his eyes again he was lying on his cot. A little way from him, their backs turned, Claire and Paul Veniza were whispering earnestly together. He watched them for a moment, and gradually as his senses became normally acute again he caught Claire's words: