He had been expected before, but had arrived now in the nick of time while the brig was casting anchor.
Saskia had said that he had a devil's brain, and Dickson, as he stared at him, saw a fiendish cleverness in his straight brows and a remorseless cruelty in his stiff jaw and his pale eyes.
He achieved the bravest act of his life.

Shaky and dizzy as he was, with freedom newly opened to him and the mental torments of his captivity still an awful recollection, he did not hesitate.

He saw before him the villain of the drama, the one man that stood between the Princess and peace of mind.

He regarded no consequences, gave no heed to his own fate, and thought only how to put his enemy out of action.
There was a by spanner lying on the ground.

He seized it and with all his strength smote at the man's face.
The motor-cyclist, kneeling and working hard at his machine, had raised his head at Dickson's approach and beheld a wild apparition--a short man in ragged tweeds, with a bloody brow and long smears of blood on his cheeks.