His eyes were but two black patches, and his teeth glistened
with a death's head grin between his retracted lips, no thicker than
blackish parchment glued over the gums.
From him Heyst's eyes wandered to the creature who had replaced the
first man at the end of the water-pipe. Enormous brown paws clutched it
savagely; the wild, big head hung back, and in a face covered with a wet
mass of hair there gaped crookedly a wide mouth full of fangs. The water
filled it, welled up in hoarse coughs, ran down on each side of the jaws
and down the hairy throat, soaked the black pelt of the enormous chest,
naked under a torn check shirt, heaving convulsively with a play of
massive muscles carved in red mahogany.
As soon as the first man had recovered the breath knocked out of him
by the irresistible charge, a scream of mad cursing issued from the
stern-sheets. With a rigid, angular crooking of the elbow, the man at
the tiller put his hand back to his hip.
"Don't shoot him, sir!" yelled the first man. "Wait! Let me have that
tiller. I will teach him to shove himself in front of a caballero!"
Martin Ricardo flourished the heavy piece of wood, leaped forward with
astonishing vigour, and brought it down on Pedro's head with a crash
that resounded all over the quiet sweep of Black Diamond Bay. A crimson
patch appeared on the matted hair, red veins appeared in the water
flowing all over his face, and it dripped in rosy drops off his head.
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