“‘Ah, what’s the use o’ killin’ ’im?’ said one of the sailors, a hard specimen whom Deshay had picked up on the ‘Barbary Coast.’ ‘Dawg ‘r no dawg, we’re all goin’ up the flue. The quicker the sooner, say I.’
“‘The other sailor agreed with Deshay, who pulled out his knife and sidled toward the hound. If my strength had been equal to it I would have opposed him, but a touch of fever on top of other hardships had left me as weak as a kitten. However, it was unnecessary.
“And then, Doctor, there began a strange and savage spectacle. Dixie was by this time a hide-wrapped skeleton, yet his strength seemed in no way impaired. He was asleep by his master’s side, but at the stealthy approach of Deshay he seemed to slide away—as one drags a rug across a floor. Deshay continued to approach—at an angle—craftily, and still the hound slid away in that peculiar manner, his lustrous brown eyes fastened on the man in an agony of doubt and dread, which seemed to partly paralyze his movements. Deshay began to wheedle, to whine, to talk ‘baby-talk’ of the ‘nice-doggy’ type, and he actually hid the knife as he might if about to murder a man instead of a dog! Such a spectacle, my friend! this gaunt, savage, bloodshot, hairy, human animal, far more of a beast in all effect than the sad-eyed dog who had for days prolonged his worthless life—this bloodthirsty, _literally_ bloodthirsty human hyena, crazed at feeling his wretched life slipping through his weakening grip, slinking along that beach in the bright, dewy morning, talking baby talk to the hound—making a disgusting exhibition of his craven soul, when he might have been waiting for death with the dignity of a gentleman!
“Still he slunk—and the dog slunk before him, his hair bristling less in fear than disgust, certainly not in anger, for of this emotion there was no trace in the quiver of a lip, the echo of a growl, nor in the gleam of the beautiful, lustrous eyes. Rather it was a sense of deepest shame—a shame for his master’s race!
“And then the brute in the man tore through the thin envelope; he screamed like a cat and threw himself at the dog, only to sprawl his length on the sand. He sprang to his feet and ran braying at the animal, who fled down the beach as silently and with the even interval of the man’s own sinister shadow, until Deshay, his strength utterly gone, fell face downward on the sand, screaming obscenities. _Ach!_ never have I seen a thing more disgusting.