They fought by no rules, with no science, but bit and kicked and gouged
and wrenched and struck as occasion offered and each to the best of his
ability. Duchemin caught glimpses of a face like a Chinese devil-mask,
hideously distorted with working features and disfigured with smears of
soot through which insane eyeballs rolled and glared in the moonlight.
Then a hand like a vice gripped his windpipe, he was on his back, his
head overhanging the edge of the floor, a thumb was feeling for one of
his eyes. Yet it could not have been much later when he and his
opponent were standing and swaying as one, locked in an embrace of
wrestlers.
Still, Duchemin knew as many tricks of hand-to-hand fighting as the
other, perhaps a few more. And then he was, no doubt, in far better
condition. At all events the fellow was presently at his mercy, in a
hold that gave one the privilege of breaking his back at will. A man of
mistaken scruples, Duchemin failed to do so, but held the other
helpless only long enough to find his hip-pocket and rip out the
pistol--a deadly Luger. Then a thrust and a kick, which he enjoyed
infinitely, sent the brute spinning out to land on his head.
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