Page:A Night Among The Nihilists by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.djvu/18

250 lence. It is our lives or yours. Let the highest among us speak."

"You are right, sir," said the English agent; "there is but one course open. He must be dismissed."

I knew what that meant in their confounded jargon, and sprang to my feet.

"By Heaven!" I shouted, putting my back against the door, "you shan't butcher a free Englishman like a sheep! The first among you who stirs drops!"

A man sprang at me. I saw along the sights of my derringer the gleam of a knife and the demoniacal face of Gustave Berger. Then I pulled the trigger, and, with his hoarse scream sounding in my ears, I was felled to the ground by a crushing blow from behind. Half-unconscious, and pressed down by some heavy weight, I heard the noise of shouts and blows above me, and then I fainted.

When I came to myself I was lying among the debris of the door, which had been beaten in on the top of me. Opposite were a dozen of the men who had lately sat in judgment upon me, tied two and two, and guarded by a score of Russian soldiers. Beside me was the corpse of the ill-fated English agent, his whole face blown in by the force of the explosion. Alexis and Petrokine were both lying on the floor like myself, bleeding profusely.

"Well, young fellow, you've had a narrow escape," said a hearty voice in my ear.

I looked up, and recognized my black-eyed acquaintance of the railway carriage.