Already he had attained the gully’s edge, when there moved out upon the hard sand a thing so out of all conception, an apparition so monstrous, that the professor’s net fell from his hand, and a loud cry burst from him. Through the enveloping medium of the mist, the figure swayed vaguely, and assumed shapes beyond comprehension. Suddenly it doubled on itself, contracted to a compact blur, underwent a swift inversion, and before the scientist’s straining vision there arose a man, dreadful of aspect indeed, but still a human being, and as such, not beyond human powers to cope with. The man had been moving toward the body of Colton when the professor’s shout arrested him. Now he whirled about and stood facing the height with squinted eyes and bestially gnashing teeth. To delay him was the one chance for Colton’s life, if Colton indeed were not already beyond help. “If I only could get down the gully!” thought the professor, and dismissed the thought instantly. Time for any course except the direct one now was lacking. The one way lay over the cliff. “Stand where you are!” he shouted in a voice of command, and before the words were fairly done he was in mid-air, a giddy terror dulling his brain as he plunged down through the fog. Fortunately—for the bones of fifty-odd years are brittle—he landed upon a slope of soft sand. Pitching forward, he threw himself completely over, and carried to his feet by the impetus, charged down the slope upon the man. It was the juggler. So much the professor realised as he sped forward. Mania of murder was written unmistakably on the seamed and malignant face and in the eyes, as the man turned them on the professor. His posture was that of a startled beast, alert and alarmed. Beyond him, near the sprawled body of Colton, a huge knife with an inordinately broad blade stuck, half upright, in the sand. Toward this the maniac had started, but turned swiftly with a snarl, and crouched, as the intrepid scientist ran in upon him. Exultation, savage and keen, a most unscientific emotion, blazed up in Professor Ravenden as he noted that his opponent had little the advantage of him in size and weight. What little there was would be offset by his own natural wiriness of frame which a rigid habit of life and out-of-door exercise had kept from the deterioration of age. The scientist came in, stooping low, and, stooping low, the murderer met the onset. The two closed. With a sudden, daunting shock the entomologist realised, as Whalley’s muscles tightened on his, that he had met the strength of fury. For a moment they strained, Professor Ravenden striving for a grip which should enable him to break the other’s foothold. Then with a rabid scream the creature dashed his face into the professor’s shoulder. Through cloth and flesh sheared the ravening teeth, until they grated on the shoulder-blade.