leapt with a rush, passed her before her laugh had time to go out,
and turned short, barring the way, and braced to withstand her.

She came hurling desperate, with a feint to the right hand, and
then launched herself upon him with a spring like a wild beast
when it leaps to kill. And he, with one strong arm and a hand that
could not hold, with one strong hand and an arm that could not
guide and sustain, he caught and held her even so. And they fell
together. And because he felt his whole arm slipping, and his
whole hand loosing, to slack the dreadful agony of the wrenched
bone above, he caught and held with his teeth the tunic at her
knee, as she struggled up and wrung off his hands to overleap him
victorious.

Like lightning she snatched her axe, and struck him on the neck,
deep--once, twice--his life-blood gushed out, staining her feet.

The stars touched midnight.

The death scream he heard was not his, for his set teeth had
hardly yet relaxed when it rang out; and the dreadful cry began
with a woman's shriek, and changed and ended as the yell of a
beast. And before the final blank overtook his dying eyes, he saw
that She gave place to It; he saw more, that Life gave place to
Death--causelessly, incomprehensibly.

For he did not presume that no holy water could be more holy, more
potent to destroy an evil thing than the life-blood of a pure
heart poured out for another in free willing devotion.