Meantime the pirate captain had stopped, and now stood with his hand
resting upon his cane looking impassively on.

Then the black man started to run. The white man stood for a while
glaring after him; then he too started after his victim upon the run.
The black man was not very far from Tom when he staggered and fell. He
tried to rise, then fell forward again, and lay at length. At that
instant the first edge of the cloud cut across the moon, and there was
a sudden darkness; but in the silence Tom heard the sound of another
blow and a groan, and then presently a voice calling to the pirate
captain that it was all over.

He saw the dim form of the captain crossing the level sand, and then,
as the moon sailed out from behind the cloud, he saw the white man
standing over a black figure that lay motionless upon the sand.

Then Tom Chist scrambled up and ran away, plunging down into the hollow
of sand that lay in the shadows below. Over the next rise he ran, and
down again into the next black hollow, and so on over the sliding,
shifting ground, panting and gasping. It seemed to him that he could
hear footsteps following, and in the terror that possessed him he
almost expected every instant to feel the cold knife-blade slide
between his own ribs in such a thrust from behind as he had seen given
to the poor black man.

So he ran on like one in a nightmare. His feet grew heavy like lead, he
panted and gasped, his breath came hot and dry in his throat. But still
he ran and ran until at last he found himself in front of old Matt
Abrahamson's cabin, gasping, panting, and sobbing for breath, his knees
relaxed and his thighs trembling with weakness.