But it was heaved too
high, and Mac Strann went in like a football player rushing the line,
almost doubled up against the floor as he ran. His shoulders struck the
other hardly higher than the knees, and they went down together, but so
doing the head of Mac Strann's victim cracked against the floor, and he
also was still.
The exploit was greeted by a yell of applause and then someone proposed
a cheer, and it was given. It died off short on the lips of the
applauders, however, for it was seen that Mac Strann was not yet done
with his work, and he went about it in a manner which made men sober
suddenly and exchange glances.
First the stranger dragged the two brothers together, laying one of them
face down on the floor. The second he placed over the first, back to
back. Next he picked up the long poker from the floor and slipped it
under the head and down to the neck of the first man. The bystanders
watched in utter silence, with a touch of horror coming now in their
eyes.
Now Mac Strann caught the ends of the iron and began to twist up on
them. There was no result at first. He refreshed his hold and tried
again. The sleeves of his shirt were seen to swell and then grow hard
and taut with vast play of muscle beneath. His head bowed lower between
his shoulders, and those shoulders trembled, and the muscles over them
quivered like heat-waves rising of a spring morning. There was a
creaking, now, and then the iron was seen to shiver and then bend,
slowly, and once it was wrenched out of the horizontal, the motion was
more and more rapid.
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