Never before had he felt the desire to kill. But he felt that
desire now. Before the night was much older he would do unto
Hawkins and Mooney as Hawkins had done unto Peter. He would leave
them alive, but broken and crippled and forever punished.

And then he stumbled over something in another darkening of the
moon. He stopped, and the light came again, and he looked down
into the upturned face of Jed Hawkins. It was a distorted and
twisted face, and its one eye was closed. The body did not move.
And close to the head was the club which Nada had used.

Jolly Roger laughed grimly. Fate was kind to him in making a half
of his work so easy. But he wanted Hawkins to rouse himself first.
Roughly he stirred him with the toe of his boot.

"Wake up, you fiend," he said. "I'm going to break your bones,
your arms, your legs, just as you broke Peter--and that poor old
woman back in the cabin. Wake up!"

Jed Hawkins made no stir. He was strangely limp. For many seconds
Jolly Roger stood looking down at him, his eyes growing wider,
more staring. Darkness came again. It was an inky blackness this
time, like a blotter over the world. Low thunder came out of the
west. The tree-tops whispered in a frightened sort of way. And
Jolly Roger could hear his heart beating. He dropped upon his
knees, and his hands moved over Jed Hawkins. For a space not even
Peter could have heard his movement or his breath.

In the ebon darkness he rose to his feet, and the night--
lifelessly still for a moment--heard the one choking word that