Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/289

Rh "We'll show him the stuff a real prisoner is made of," whispered the horse thief, Rukla, an immense man, built as though he were carved from granite. All the inmates of the room arose and began to surround the pike, who sat modestly and unmoved at the end of his bench. Only the Georgians did not rise.

Suddenly the youth raised his head, half closed his dark eyes and asked in a sneering, penetrating voice:

"Whom do you want to fight? Me, Demetrius, the Hawk?" As he spoke, he stood up and straightened himself with pride. "Try it, but look well to what you are about," he snapped at the crowd and, with extraordinary ease and agility, bent down and lifted a heavy bench, poised it over some of his hearers and threateningly continued:

"I shall kill you all because you did not recognize the Hawk, you green devils!" Then he laughed at his subdued attackers.

"Fighting is forbidden," came with an oath from a guard through the wicket.

The Hawk looked at him for one short second and then hurled the bench at the door, which boomed and reverberated under the blow. In an instant the keeper's whistle had brought soldiers to his side, and together they opened the door and ordered the Hawk to accompany them to a subterranean cell. He made no resistance and quitted the room with calm dignity, only stopping at the threshold to bow himself out with the parting words:

"Good-bye! Such a leader as I cannot dwell with worms!"

Leaving the room in profound silence, he passed down the corridor with his head in the air and with firm, soldier-like steps. The astonished prisoners remained silent for quite a moment, until finally Rukla muttered: