By the sudden light David saw his father on the far side the table, pointing with crooked forefinger. By his side Red Wull was standing alert, hackles up, yellow fangs bared, eyes lurid; and, at his feet, the wee brown mouse lay still and lifeless.
"Oot o' ma hoose! Back to Kenmuir! Back to yer ----" The unpardonable word, unmistakable, hovered for a second on his lips like some foul bubble, and never burst.
"No mither this time!" panted David, racing round the table.
The Terror leapt to the attack; but David overturned the table as he ran, the blunderbuss crashing to the floor; it fell, opposing a momentary barrier in the dog's path.
"Stan' off, ye--!" screeched the little man, seizing a chair in both hands; "stan' off, or I'll brain ye!"
Again the Terror came with a roar like the sea. But David, with a mighty kick catching him full on the jaw, repelled the attack.
Then he gripped his father round the waist and lifted him from the ground. The little man, struggling in those iron arms, screamed, cursed, and battered at the face above him, kicking and biting in his frenzy.
"The Killer! wad ye ken wha's the Killer? Go and ask 'em at Kenmuir! Ask yer ----"
David swayed slightly, crushing the body in his arms till it seemed every rib must break; then hurled it from him with all the might of passion. The little man fell with a crash and a groan.
The blaze in the corner flared, flickered, and died. There was hell-black darkness, and silence of the dead.
David stood against the wall, panting, every nerve tightstrung as the hawser of a straining ship.
In the corner lay the body of his father, limp and still; and in the room one other living thing was moving.
He clung close to the wall, pressing it with wet hands. The horror of it all, the darkness, the man in the corner, that moving something, petrified him.
There was no reply. A chair creaked at an invisible touch. Something was creeping, stealing, crawling closer.
"Feyther!" he whispered in hoarse agony, "are yo' hurt?"
The words were stifled in his throat. A chair overturned with a crash; a great body struck him on the chest; a hot, pestilent breath volleyed in his face, and wolfish teeth were reaching for his throat.
The horror of suspense was past. It had come, and with it he was himself again.