Shall we call it a day and quit?
Or--" He broke off with an exclamation of genuine wrath.

For, with astonishing swiftness, the big hand had flown to the hip of the ragged trousers, had plucked a short-bladed fishing knife from its sheath, and had hurled it, dexterously, with the strength of a catapult, straight at his smiling adversary's throat.
The sub-tropic beach comber and the picaroon acquire nasty tricks with knives, and have an uncanny skill at their use.
Brice twisted to one side, with a sharp suddenness that all but threw his back out of joint.

The knife whizzed through the still air like a great hornet.

The breath of its passage fanned Gavin's averted face, as he wrenched his head out of its path.
The collie had watched the supposed gambols of the two men with keen, but impersonal, interest.

But here at last was something he could understand.