up and tore at his hair; but Jan saw only the missioner's mottled face
growing more mottled, and his eyes staring in greater agony up into
his own.

"I am Jan Thoreau," he panted again and again. "I am Jan Thoreau, an'
I keel you--keel you!"

The blood poured from his face. It blinded him until he could no
longer see the one from which he was choking life. He bent down his
head to escape the blows. The man's body heaved more and more; it
turned until he was half under it; but still he hung to the thick
throat, as the weasel hangs in tenacious death to the jugular of its
prey.

The missioner's weight was upon him in crushing force now. His huge
hands struck and tore at the boy's head and face, and then they had
fastened themselves at his neck. Jan was conscious of a terrible
effort to take in breath, but he was not conscious of pain. The clutch
did not frighten him. It did not make him loosen his grip. His fingers
dug deeper. He strove to cry out still his words of triumph; but he
could make no sound, except a gasping like that which came from
between the gaping jaws of the man whose life his body and soul were
fighting to smother.

There was death in each of the two grips; but the man's was the
stronger, and his neck was larger and tougher, so that after a time he
staggered to his knees and then to his feet, while Jan lay upon his
back, his face and hair red with blood, his eyes wide open and with a
lifeless glare in them. The missioner looked down upon his victim in
horror. As the life that had nearly ebbed out of him poured back into