Then, as he was rushing on his foe like a bull, with all his hatred boiling in his head, all went suddenly dark, and he was lying unconscious with his face on the trodden grass, and George Hamon stood over him, with his fists still clenched, all battered and bleeding, and breathing like a spent horse, but happier than he had been for many a day.
Martel lay so still that a fear began to grow in Hamon that he was dead.

He had caught him deftly on the temple as he came on.

He had heard of men being killed by a blow like that.

He knelt and turned the other gingerly over, and felt his heart beating.

And then the black eyes opened on him and the whites of them gleamed viciously in the moonlight, and Hamon stood up, and, after a moment's consideration, strode away and kicked about in the bracken till he found the other's knife.