ch is only seen when the wrestlers wrestle for life and
death. The German was a powerful and firmly built man; but Cecil's
science was the finer and the most masterly. His long, slender delicate
limbs seemed to twine and writhe around the massive form of his
antagonist like the coils of a cobra; they rocked and swayed to and fro
on the stones, while the shrill, shrieking voice of Baroni filled the
night with its clamor. The viselike pressure of the stalwart arms of his
opponent crushed him in till his ribs seemed to bend and break under the
breathless oppression, the iron force; but desperation nerved him, the
Royallieu blood, that never took defeat, was roused now, for the first
time in his careless life; his skill and his nerve were unrivaled,
and with a last effort he dashed the Huissier off him, and lifting him
up--he never knew how--as he would have lifted a log of wood, hurled
him down in the white streak of moonlight that alone slanted through the
peaked roofs of the crooked by-street.
The cries of Baroni had already been heard; a crowd, drawn by their
shrieking appeals, were bearing toward the place in tumult. The Jew had
the quick wit to give them, as call-word, that is was a croupier who
had been found cheating and fled; it sufficed to inflame the whole mob
against the fugitive. Cecil looked round him once--such a glance as a
Royal gives when the gaze-hounds are panting about him and the fangs are
in his throat; then, with the swiftness of the deer itself, he dashed
downward into the gloom of the winding passage at the speed which had
carried him, in many a foot-race, victor in the old green Eton meadows.
There was scarce a man in the Queen's Service who could rival him for
lightness of limb, for power of endurance in every sport of field and
fell, of the moor and the gymnasium; and the athletic pleasures of
many a happy hour stood him in good stead now, in the emergence of his
terrible extremity.
Flight!--for the instant the word thrilled through him with a loathing
sense. Flight!--the craven's refuge, the criminal's resource. He wished
in the moment's agony that they would send a bullet through his brain as
he ran, rather than drive him out to this. Flight!--he felt a coward and
a felon as he fled; fled from every fairer thing, from every peaceful
hour, from the friendship and good will of men, from the fame of his
ancient race, from the smile of the women that loved him, from all that
makes life rich and
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