It was pitch dark, and I had no fear that I should be seen. I was
standing well outside the light from the window.

The man stopped just in front of me. A short parley followed.

'Can'tja see him?'

The voice was not Buck's. It was Buck who answered. And when I
realized that this man in front of me, within easy reach, on whose
back I was shortly about to spring, and whose neck I proposed,
under Providence, to twist into the shape of a corkscrew, was no
mere underling, but Mr MacGinnis himself, I was filled with a joy
which I found it hard to contain in silence.

Looking back, I am a little sorry for Mr MacGinnis. He was not a
good man. His mode of speech was not pleasant, and his manners
were worse than his speech. But, though he undoubtedly deserved
all that was coming to him, it was nevertheless bad luck for him
to be standing just there at just that moment. The reactions after
my panic, added to the pain of my shoulder, the scratches on my
face, and the general misery of being wet and cold, had given me a
reckless fury and a determination to do somebody, whoever happened
to come along, grievous bodily hurt, such as seldom invades the
bosoms of the normally peaceful. To put it crisply, I was fighting
mad, and I looked on Buck as something sent by Heaven.

He had got as far, in his reply, as 'Naw, I can't--' when I
sprang.