Part 41 (2/2)
”None of your arithmetic for me. I only want money, much money! Where is much money?”
”As I said already, at Kormocz, in the mint.”
”Enough of your foolery!” threatened the highwayman. ”For if I begin to search, you won't thank me for it.”
”Well, search the carriage over; all you find in it is yours.”
”I shan't search the coach, but you, too, to your skin.”
”What?” cried the woman, in a pa.s.sion; and at that moment her face, with her knitted eyebrows, became like that of a mythical Fury. ”Try it,”--with these words das.h.i.+ng the knife down into the table, which it pierced to the depth of an inch.
The thief began to speak in a less presumptuous tone.
”What else will you give me?”
”What else, indeed?” said the lady, throwing herself defiantly back in her chair. ”The devil and his son.”
”You have a bracelet on your arm.”
”There you are!” said the woman, unclasping the emerald trinket from her arm, and das.h.i.+ng it on the table.
The thief began to look at it critically.
”What is it worth?”
”I received it as a present: you can get a drink of wine for it in the nearest inn you reach.”
”And there is a beautiful ring sparkling on your finger.”
”Let it sparkle.”
”I don't believe it cannot come off.”
”It will not come off, for I shall not give it.” At this moment the thief suddenly grasped the woman's hand in which she held the knife, seizing it by the wrist, and while she was writhing in desperate struggle against the iron grip, with his other hand thrust the end of his pistol in her mouth.
This awful scene had till now made upon Lorand the impression of the quarrel of a tipsy husband with his obstinate wife, who answers all his provocations with jesting: the lady seemed incapable of being frightened, the thief of frightening. Some unnatural indifference seemed to give the lie to that scene, which youthful imagination would picture so differently. The meeting of a thief with an unprotected lady, at night, in an inn on the plain! It was impossible that they should speak so to one another.
But as the robber seized the lady's hand, and leaning across the table, drew her by sheer force towards him, continually threatening the screaming woman with a pistol, the young man's blood suddenly boiled up within him. He leaped forward from the darkness, unnoticed by the thief, crept toward him and seized the rascal's right hand, in which he held the pistol, while with his other hand he tore the second pistol from the man's belt.
The highwayman, like some infuriated beast, turned upon his a.s.sailant, and strove to free his arm from the other's grip.
He felt he had to do with one whose wrist was as firm as his own.
”Student!” he snarled, with lips tightly drawn like a wolf, and gnas.h.i.+ng his gleaming white teeth.
”Don't stir,” said Lorand, pointing the pistol at his forehead.
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