'I will not harm thee any more,' I cried, so far as I could for panting, the work being very furious: 'Carver Doone, thou art beaten: own it, and thank God for it; and go thy way, and repent thyself.'
It was all too late. Even if he had yielded in his ravening frenzy--for his beard was like a mad dog's jowl--even if he would have owned that, for the first time in his life, he had found his master; it was all too late.
The black bog had him by the feet; the sucking of the ground drew on him, like the thirsty lips of death. In our fury, we had heeded neither wet nor dry; nor thought of earth beneath us. I myself might scarcely leap, with the last spring of o'er-laboured legs, from the engulfing grave of slime. He fell back, with his swarthy breast (from which my gripe had rent all clothing), like a hummock of bog-oak, standing out the quagmire; and then he tossed his arms to heaven, and they were black to the elbow, and the glare of his eyes was ghastly. I could only gaze and pant; for my strength was no more than an infant's, from the fury and the horror. Scarcely could I turn away, while, joint by joint, he sank from sight.