Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/293

 and "strong-arm" artifices and first aid to the injured. It had taught him the use of the "arm-twist" and the "hip-throw," of the "neck-hold" for breaking a rear attack clutch, of the "leg-lock" for pinning down a prisoner so that a captor's hands could be free. He had also mastered that most efficacious expedient of thumb-pressure on the nose, that torturing pressure, on the thin and membranous bones, which could so promptly break a waist-hold, not only by engendering a pain that soon became unendurable but also by compressing an air-passage that was essential to life.

That was the trick which Kestner thought of as he felt Lambert's bear-like pressure about his constricted waist. That was the trick on which he hung his hopes, remembering that his hip-wound, however slight, might still leave him weak from loss of blood. It was not time, he inwardly repeated, for half-measures.

He even lost ground a little as he shifted his right arm, but this did not cause him to lose hope. Once his hand was free, even as the struggle along the rough boards continued, he fought to gain that lean and bony face. He clutched it savagely, as a collie's jaw clamps on a chicken bone. He felt for the nose, placed his thumb, locked his fingers, and applied the pressure.

He knew as he did so, that it was then merely a matter of time. Lambert fought with fresh fire, knowing that clutch had to be broken, and broken soon. But Kestner hung on like a leech. The great body under him lurched and tossed and heaved. Together they rolled over and over. Then they went bodily