His face flushed, his lips curled back, he chattered his teeth like an ape, and his eyes--those indolent eyes which had always twinkled so placidly--were gorged and frantic.

He threw himself upon the negro, and struck him again and again, feebly but viciously, in his broad, black face.

He hit like a girl, round arm, with an open palm.

The man winced away for an instant, appalled by this sudden blaze of passion.
Then with an impatient, snarling cry, he slid a knife from his long loose sleeve and struck upwards under the whirling arm.

Brown sat down at the blow and began to cough--to cough as a man coughs who has choked at dinner, furiously, ceaselessly, spasm after spasm.