The policeman had a second's warning. It was something, but not enough to give him an advantage. He got his truncheon out, but simultaneously his assailant was on him with the ferocity of a catamount. They closed in bone-breaking endeavor, and before they were locked together for ten fearful seconds the officer of the law bitterly regretted the professional pride which sent him single-handed into this unequal strife. For he was physically outclassed, and he knew it, and there is no more unnerving knowledge can come to a man in such a supreme moment. Nevertheless, he was a brave man, and he fought with all the resolution that is born of the consciousness of justice and moral right. But Providence is on the side of big battalions, and "Jocky" was taller, heavier, very much more active. Moreover, liberty is as potent an incentive as law any day, and law was being steadily throttled when the pale gleam of Philip's candle lit up the confines of the ruinous hovel about which the two men stamped and lurched and wrestled. At the precise moment of the boy's entrance the policeman's knees yielded and he fell, with his remorseless antagonist uppermost. Philip, gazing at them wide-eyed, almost fell too, for his left foot rolled on the constable's staff. Being fashioned of the stuff which founds empires--on the principle that instant action is worth a century of diplomacy--he picked up the truncheon and brought it down on "Jocky's" hard skull with such emphasis that the convict emitted a queer sort of cough, and collapsed limply on top of his conquered adversary. Then the boy was horrified. The two lay so still that he imagined both were dead. It is one thing to help the law, but quite another to kill a man. He did not want to be a murderer as well as a millionaire, not knowing then the qualities which go to form these varieties of the _genus homo_ are strangely alike. He gazed at them as in a trance, but relief came when he heard them breathing stertorously. At last, after a pause that apparently endured unnumbered minutes, the constable weakly rolled himself free from the bulky form of his would-be slayer, and sat up. He inflated his lungs vigorously. Then he managed to gasp: "Thank you! You've saved my life!" He pressed his ribs with both hands and gingerly felt his throat. He stood up. His lamp was still alight, but a quantity of oil had run over his tunic and trousers. "By Jove, boy, you are a brick," he said, and his voice was under control again. Philip answered not a word; his eyes were glued on the prostrate form of Jocky. The policeman understood his fear, and laughed. "Don't you worry about him. He'll do a stretch all right. I would have given him a harder one than that if I got a swing at him."