On the finest verge of overpoise he held, swung round with a slackening hold, and dropped him like a cast bale to the bottom of the boat. Then he caught the tiller and clung to it with the strength of a drowning man. Philip lay groaning, broken and wrung in body and mind. He realised a dreadful truth: for one brief second he had seen in Christian's eyes fierce, eager hatred; clear, reasonable, for informed by most comprehensive memory; mad he was, but out of no deficiency; mad, with never a blank of mind to disallow vengeance; as cunning and as strong he was as ever madness could make a man; unmasked, a human devil. The Adventurer lifted him and felt his bones, himself half stunned and bleeding, for he had been flung heavily from unpractised balance, as suddenly the boat lurched and careened in the wallop of the sea. The menace of an extreme peril closed their difference, compelling fellowship. They counselled and agreed together with a grasp and a nod and few words. Philip fumbled for his knife, unclasped, and showed it. 'Our lives or his. Have you?' 'Better,' returned the other, and had out a long dagger-knife sheathed, that he loosened to lie free for instant use. 'It has done service before. Can you stand? are you able?' It was darkening so that sight could inform them but little concerning the Alien. Christian was regarding them not at all. From head to foot he was trembling, so that he had ado to stand upright and keep the boat straight. Not from restraint his lips were bitten and his breath laboured hard: quick revulsion had cast him down, so passion-spent, conscience-stricken, and ashamed, that scarcely had he virtue left for the face of a man. Their advance strung him, for he saw the significant reserve of each right hand. That his misdeed justified any extreme he knew, not conscious in his sore compunction of any right to resist even for his life. He waited without protest, but neither offered to strike. Reason bade for quick despatch--very little would have provoked it; but not Philip at his worst could conduct a brutal butchery, when conviction dawned that a human creature stood at their mercy by his own mere resolute submission. With names of coward and devil he struck him first, but they did not stir him to affording warrant. The Adventurer took up the word. 'Brutal coward, or madman, which you be, answer for your deed; confess you are a traitor paid and approved.' He shook his head. 'Why else have you now half murdered your fellow? Verily are you an alien through and through, for no man born on these shores would so basely betray a trust.' 'Nor I,' he got out, and rather wished they would strike with their hands.