I was almost shouting aloud--feeling as though 'twere my own throat
thus gripp'd--when the end came. The man had his legs planted well
apart.

I saw his shoulders heave up and bend as he tightened the pressure
of his fingers; then came a moment's dead silence, then a hideous
gurgle, and the mastiff dropped back, his hind legs trailing limp.

The bully held him so for a full minute, peering close to make sure
he was dead, and then without loosening his hold, dragged him across
the grass under my window. By the sycamore he halted, but only to
shift his hands a little; and so, swaying on his hips, sent the
carcase with a heave over the wall. I heard it drop with a thud on
the far side.

During this fierce wrestle--which must have lasted about two
minutes--the clatter and shouting of the company above had gone on
without a break; and all this while the man with the white hair had
rested quietly on one side, watching. But now he steps up to where
the bully stood mopping his face (for all the coolness of the
evening), and, with a finger between the leaves of his book, bows
very politely.

"You handled that dog, sir, choicely well," says he, in a thin voice
that seemed to have a chuckle hidden in it somewhere.

The other ceased mopping to get a good look at him.

"But sure," he went on, "'twas hard on the poor cur, that had never
heard of Captain Lucius Higgs--"