Into the room hurtled the doctor, to check and stand there blinking at me,
too much surprised for a moment to grasp the situation.
When, at last, he understood, the returning flow of rage was overwhelming.
"You!" he gasped, and then his voice mounting--"You dog!" he screamed. "So
it was you! You!"
He crouched and his little eyes, all blood-injected, peered at me with
horrid malice. He grew cold again as he mastered his surprise. "You!" he
repeated. "Blind fool that I have been! You! The walker in the ways of
St. Augustine--in his early ways, I think. You saint in embryo, you
postulant for holy orders! You shall be ordained this night--with this!"
And he raised his sword so that little yellow runnels of light sped down
the livid blade.
"I will ordain you into Hell, you hound!" And thereupon he leapt at me.
I sprang away from the window, urged by fear of him into a very sudden
activity. As I crossed the room I had a glimpse of the white figure of
Giuliana in the gloom of the passage, watching.
He came after me, snarling. I seized a stool and hurled it at him. He
avoided it nimbly, and it went crashing through the half of the casement
that was still closed.
And as he avoided it, grown suddenly cunning, he turned back towards the
door to bar my exit should I attempt to lead him round the table.
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