“Keep behind!” I shouted to Jason, who was uttering incoherent cries and running to and fro like a thing smitten with a sunstroke. He stopped at sound of my voice; then came and clung to me, feeling me to be his last hope. For a moment Duke lay as if stunned; then slowly gathered himself together and rose to his feet--rose only to collapse again, with a snarling curse of agony. He glowered up at us, moaning and muttering, and nursing his injured limb; for so it seemed that, in falling, he had cruelly twisted and sprained one of his ankles. When the truth broke upon me I turned round upon my brother with a great breath of gratitude and relief. “Run!” I cried. “You can be miles away before he will be able to move, even.” Jason leaped from me, his eyes staring maniacally. “You fool!” I cried; “go! Leave him to me! You can be at Southampton before he is out of the field here. Even if he is able to walk by morning, which I doubt, he has me to reckon with!” Some little nerve came to him, once standing outside the baneful influence of the eyes. He dashed his hand across his forehead, gave me one rapid, wild glance of gratitude and renewed hope, and, turning, ran for his life into the darkness. As his footsteps clattered faintly down the road I returned to grapple with his enemy. I almost stumbled over him as I turned the corner. He had rolled and struggled so far in his rabid frenzy; and now, seeing me come back alone, he set up a yell of rage, reviling and cursing me and hurling impotent lightnings of hate after his escaped victim. Gradually the storm of his passion mouthed itself away and he lay silent on the ground like a dead thing. Then I moved to him; knelt and softly pulled him by the sleeve. “Duke, shall I bind it up for you?” “What? My heart?” He spoke with his face in the grass. “Bind it in a sling, you fool--it’s a heavy stone--and smite the accursed Philistine on the forehead with it.” “Has this bitter trouble dehumanized you altogether? Do you blame me in this? He was my brother.” “And you were my friend. What is the value of it all? I would have crushed you like a beetle if you stood in my way to him. Deviltry is the only happiness. I think he was beforehand with me in that. What a poor idiot to let him be! I might have enjoyed a minute’s bliss for the price of my soul, and now my only hope of it is by killing him.” “That you shall never do if I can prevent it.” He rolled over on his back, thrust his arms beneath his head and lay staring at me with deeply melancholy eyes. “Let’s cry an armistice for the night,” he said, in a low, gentle voice. “Forever, Duke!” “Between us two? Why not--on all questions but the one?” “Find some pity in your heart, even for him.” “Never!” He jerked out an arm and shook it savagely at the sky. “Never!” I gave a heavy sigh. “Well,” I said, “let’s look to your foot, at least.” “Is he beyond my reach?”