Even at this distance of time, as I seek to recall that moment, I can well believe that the bloody, bestial savagery of the fight--except for the short, gasping, hissing intaking and expulsion of breath, we fought in silence--might have turned a possible onlooker sick with loathing and disgust. But it was soon over. The strain I had put upon myself, when first grappling with him, was too terrific to last. My strength suddenly failed me, and I fell backward, his fingers upon my throat. In our struggle we had worked our way out of the cellar and into the passage which led to the garden, and, as I went crashing backward, I saw for one instant, by the light from the lamp-post in the side street, that his right hand was already at his hip-pocket in search of a knife. The next instant he was kneeling on my chest, the knife upraised to strike--just as I had foreseen in the dream-tableau. As he bent over me to get a yet firmer grip upon my throat, the yellow lamp-light fell across my face. Out of his face, which had now turned white and haggard, the blood-fury seemed suddenly to die. "My God!" he gasped. "It's Grant the detective--and I've killed the wrong man!" Then there came into his eyes a look which, seeing it again in dreams even now, years after, makes me awake with a cry, to find the cold perspiration from my forehead running down into my eyes, my limbs trembling and my heart leaping like a frightened creature. "I've got you at last, Grant, have I!" he said, in a voice of cold and slow and deadly calmness. "Just now--seeing him go in and out of your house, and, striking in the dark, as I did--I killed a man whom I believed to be you. But there can be no mistake this time. I've got you now, and this time"--he took a firmer grip of the knife--"this time, I rather guess you're going to die." CHAPTER XVIII. I PLAY THE CRAVEN. Then I played the craven. It is useless to say any more. It is idle to urge an excuse. I played the craven, and pleaded to the man at whom, a few minutes before, when he was unprepared, and after he had spared my life, I had struck a cowardly blow. "Don't strike!" I gasped. "I'm not Grant--Grant is dead. I've seen his body. I'll tell you about it, if you'll not strike." "This," he said--almost drawled--in slow, deliberate accents, "is very extraordinary and most interesting. I won't promise to spare your life. But I'll hear your tale. I'll promise nothing else, young man, whoever you are, till I've heard you out." My momentary panic was over. Already I was beginning to feel ashamed of myself. Already the manhood which had deserted me was returning.