Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/421

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN plunge backward, he endeavored to free his arm from the grasp of the negro. But he did not do it. Those black fingers were fastened around his wrist as though they had been fetters forged to fit him. And in the desperate struggle the knife was dropped.

In a hand-to-hand combat with a chimpanzee, a strong man would have but little chance of success, and Mok, under the influence of two glasses of beer, was a man-chimpanzee. When Banker swore, and when he turned so that the light of the street lamp fell upon his face, Mok recognized him. He knew him for a Rackbird of the Rackbirds—as the cruel, black-eyed savage who had beaten him, trodden upon him, and almost crushed the soul out of him, in that far-away camp by the sea. How this man should have suddenly appeared in Paris, why he came there, and what he was going to do, whether he was alone, or with his band concealed in the neighboring door ways, Mok did not trouble his mind to consider. He held in his brazen grip a creature whom he considered worse than the most devilish of African devils, a villain who had been going to kill Cheditafa.

Every nerve under his black skin, every muscle that covered his bones, and the two glasses of beer, sung out to him that the Rackbird could not get away from him, and that the great hour of vengeance had arrived.

Banker had a pistol, but he had no chance to draw it. The arms of the wild man were around him. His feet slipped from under him, and instantly the two were rolling on the wet pavement. But only for an instant. Banker was quick and light and strong to such a degree that no man but a man- chimpanzee 405