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Rh full force of his heavy stick fair across the temples. Annis cursed loudly as he crumpled and relaxed. The same instant the hot, stinging sensation in Hereford's shoulder changed to a feeling of cold steel in warm flesh, the tear of a cut as the steel turned in it. Hereford felt for the long, slender rapier Annis had drawn from his cane and with which he had run him through.

Surprised at it and not at all realizing what it meant, as the pain yet told him nothing, he drew it out, still more astonished at the blood which followed. As he felt it flowing hot and wet over his underclothes and coming out over his coat, his dismay took the immediate form of a dazed realization that it would be impossible for him to go out through the hotel in that condition. The emerald, he thought, must be somewhere on