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What a terrible and inexcusable madness had possessed him, Kent realized the instant he rose from Mercer's prostrate body Never had his brain flamed to that madness before He believed at first that he had killed Mercer It was neither pity nor regret that brought him to his senses Mercer, a coward and a traitor, a sneak of the lowest type, had no excuse for living It was the thought that he had lost his chance to reach the river that cleared his head as he swayed over Mercer

He heard running feet He saw figures approaching swiftly through the starlight And he was too weak to fight or run The little strength he had saved up, and which he had planned to use so carefully in his flight, was gone His wound, weeks in bed, muscles unaccustomed to the terrific exertion he hadand swaying as the running footsteps caly dizzy, and in the first moment of that dizziness, when every drop of blood in his body see to his brain, his vision isted and his sense of direction gone In his rage he had overexerted hi inside hier toward the inaniht him and held hi hard and cold shut round his wrists like a pair of toothless jaws

It was Constable Carter, Inspector Kedsty's right-hand man about barracks, that he saw first; then old Sands, the caretaker at Cardigan's place Swiftly as he had turned sick, his brain grew clear, and his blood distributed itself evenly again through his body He held up his hands Carter had slipped a pair of irons on hi steel Sands was bending over Mercer, and Carter was saying in a low voice: "It's too bad, Kent But I've got to do it I saw you from thejust as Mercer screa up with the assistance of Sands He turned a bloated and unseeing face toward Kent and Carter He was blubbering andfor mercy in the fear that Kent had not finished with hi for me to do now," he said "It isn't pleasant But the law says I must take you to barracks"