'I carried away the flail over your head because you hadn't more shillings in your pocket.'
'The flail?' echoed Drownlands. 'This is not a matter now of a flail. This is not a matter now of a way along the bank. It's a matter of nineteen years' endurance. For nineteen years I have borne the grossest of wrongs. I'll bear the burden no longer. The wrong shall not go another hour unavenged.'
'You've borne it so long the back is accustomed to the burden,' taunted Jake.
'For nineteen years I have endured it. But to-night we are face to face, and alone.' Again he waved his flail to heaven. 'No eye looks down upon us. I and you are equally matched as far as weapons go. All is fair between us, but if there be justice on high, it will weight my arm to beat you down; and here,' said he, touching his breast with the end of the flail,—'here is no spark of pity, just as there is now no spark aloft. If I beat you, I beat you till the blood runs, beat you till the bones are pounded, beat you till the marrow oozes out, beat you—as we beat hemp.'
Then, unable longer to control his fury, the dark man urged his horse forward with his spurs, and as he did so, the lanterns clashed against the flanks of the brute, and burnt them as the spurs had stung them. With a snort of anger and pain, the beast leaped into the air, flung himself forward, and hurled his whole weight against the horse of Runham. The latter had altered his tactics, and had drawn up to receive the charge instead of delivering it as before. At the same moment Ki swung his flail and brought it down. But he had overshot his mark, and with the violence of the blow he was carried across the neck of Runham's horse. Jake saw his advantage at once, caught him by the tiger-skin, and, grappling that, endeavoured to drag his opponent out of the saddle. But Ki reared himself up, and tried to wrench the skin away. His bodily strength was the greatest. The horses leaped, kicked, reeled, and the two men on them held fast, the tiger-skin between them. Then Runham twisted his flail in the skin and continued to turn it. In vain now did Ki endeavour to wrench it away. The skin was fast about his throat, and as it was drawn tighter and even tighter, it threatened strangulation. Jake backed his horse, and as he backed, he drew his opponent after him. The blood thumped in the ears of Drownlands. The veins in his temples swelled to bursting.