Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/174

154 It was now nearly eight o’clock, and in the dusk the man grew bold. The old-fashioned coach had a footboard, seldom used, and the runner coolly sat himself upon it in the region of Russell Square. And he actually kept his seat until, on the outskirts of Regent’s Park, a street Arab shrilly informed the coachman; whereupon the man jumped off, and rushed at the boy with lean arms whirling like windmills, and ragged tails flying in the breeze.

The boy shinned up a lamp-post, and the man stood cursing him from below, with one eye upon the receding coach.

“If I’d the time to waste upon you, I’d break you in two, you blessed little nose!” cried the man, meaning an informer.

“Don’t you talk about noses,” retorted the boy, meaning the literal organ. “You wait till you’ve got one yourself, you blessed old nightmare!”

At this taunt the man’s mutilated face flared diabolically in the dusk, and with a sudden leap he caught the boy by an ankle and brought him headlong to the pavement; then knelt over him, and dashed his head repeatedly upon the flags, with the insensate fury of a criminal lunatic. When the boy lay still, he sprang to his feet, gnashing his teeth, and looking in vain for the coach. He was instantly seized by a gentleman who had seen this dastardly assault from the balcony of his house.

The gentleman was accompanied by his son, and between them they secured the monster, while servants flew in different directions for the police and a doctor.

The boy had a broken head and broken bones; but he escaped with his life, thus saving that of the man,