IN EVIL PLIGHT 195

from his horse and sprang to seize the fugitive, whom he
regarded as incapable of offering the slightest resistance.

Charlie straightened himself up as if with an effort,
and raised his cudgel. “TI will not be taken alive,” he
said.

Ben Soloman drew his long knife from his girdle. “ Drop
that stick,” he said, “or it will be worse for you.”

“Tt cannot be worse than being tortured to death, as
you said.”

The Jew, with an angry snarl, sprang forward so sud-
denly and unexpectedly that he was within the swing of
Charlie’s cudgel before the latter could strike. He
dropped the weapon at once and caught the wrist of the
uplifted hand that held the knife. ‘The Jew gave a cry of
astonishment and rage as they clasped each other, and he
found that instead of an unresisting victim he was in a
powerful grasp. For a moment there was a desperate
struggle.

The Jew would, at ordinary times, have been no match
for Charlie, but the latter was far from having regained
his normal strength. His fury at the treatment he had
received at the man’s hands, however, enabled him for
the moment to exert himself to the utmost, and after sway-
ing backwards and forwards in desperate strife for a
minute they went to the ground with a crash, Ben Soloman
being undermost.

The Jew’s grasp instantly relaxed, and Charlie, springing
to his feet and seizing his cudgel, stood over his fallen
antagonist. The latter, however, did not move. His
eyes were open ina fixed stare. Charlie looked at him in
surprise for a moment, thinking he was stunned, then he
saw that his right arm was twisted under him in the fall,
and at once understanding what had happened, turned him
half over. He had fallen on the knife, which had pene-
trated to the haft, killing him instantly.