Then it seemed to him a voice, very far and small, was speaking to him, coolly, impersonally, in a matter-of-fact way as though suggesting an experiment.
Dazed as he was, he recognized that voice--it was the voice of Dr. Harbutt, who once had taught him many a wily trick upon the mat; Harbutt, dead and gone these thousand years or more.
"Why not try the satsu-da, Stern?" the voice was saying. "Excellent, at times."
Though Stern's face was black and swollen, eyes shut and mouth all twisted awry in this titanic struggle with the ape-hold of the huge chief, yet the soul within him calmly smiled.
The satsu-da--yes, he remembered it now, strongest and best of all the jiu-jitsu feats.
And, suddenly loosening his hands from the chief's throat, he clenched his right fist, hard as steel.
A second later the "killing-blow" had fallen on the barbarian's neck, just where the swelling protuberance behind the ear marked the vital spot.
Terrible was the force of that blow, struck for his own life, for the honor of Beatrice, the salvation of the world.
Kamrou gave a strange grunt. His head fell backward. Both eyes closed; the mouth lolled open and a glairy froth began to trickle down.
The frightful grip of the long, hairy arms relaxed. Exhausted, Stern fell prone right on the slippery edge of the boiling pit.
He felt a sudden scalding dash of water, steam and boiling spray; he heard a sudden splash, then a wild, barbarous, long-drawn howling of the massed Folk.
Lying there, spent, gasping, all but dead in the thick steam-drift of the vat, he opened his eyes.
Kamrou was nowhere to be seen.
Seemingly very distant, he heard the copper drums begin to beat once more with feverish haste.
A great, compelling lassitude enveloped him. He knew no more.