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Then he got his fingers between the noose and his neck; now the thing loosened and he pitched forward, but kept his feet. "Gott verdammt!" roared a voice above him; "Von Steyr! here! get back there! get back!" "Rickerl!" gasped Jack "tell tell them they must shoot not hang " He stood glaring at the soldiers before him, face bloody and distorted, the rope trailing from one clenched hand.
"You lie!" said Von Steyr, his face convulsed. At the same moment the surgeon stepped forward with a gesture, the two seconds placed themselves; somebody muttered a formula in a gross bass voice and the swordsmen raised their heavy sabres and saluted.
Then far away a light report startled the sudden stillness; a dark spot, suspended in mid-air, began to fall, swiftly, more swiftly, dropping through the night between sky and earth. "You damned coward!" stammered Rickerl, pointing a shaking hand at Von Steyr. "God keep you when our sabres meet!" said Von Steyr, between his teeth. Rickerl burst into an angry laugh.
One by one the battered bodies of the Uhlans were torn from their frantic horses until only one remained Von Steyr drenched with blood, his sabre flashing above his head. They pulled him from his horse, but he still raged, his bloodshot eyes flaring, his teeth gleaming under shrunken lips.
Before the eager answer came to his lips she continued, hastily: "The man who made maps the man whom you struck in the carrefour is the same man who ran away with the box; I know it!" "That spy? that tall, square-shouldered fellow with the pink skin and little, pale, pinkish eyes?" "Yes. I know his name, too." Jack sat up on the moss and listened anxiously. "His name is Von Steyr Siurd von Steyr.
Twice Von Steyr tried to pass his sabre through him; an Uhlan struck him with a lance-butt, another buried a lance-point in his back, but he clung like a wild-cat to his man, burying his teeth in the Uhlan's face, deeper, deeper, till the Uhlan reeled back and fell crashing into the road. "Fire!" shrieked Tricasse "the woman's dead!"
"Where is your prisoner?" he cried. Von Steyr stared around him, right and left Jack was gone. "Let others prefer charges," said Rickerl, contemptuously "if you escape my sabre in the morning." "Let them," said Von Steyr, quietly, but his face worked convulsively. "Second platoon dismount to search for escaped prisoner!" he cried. "Open order! Forward!"
Ah! now he knew him the map-maker of the carrefour, the sneak-thief who had scaled the park wall with the box that was the face he had struck with his clenched fist, the same pink, high-boned face, with the little, pale, pig-like eyes. In the same second the man's name came back to him as he had deciphered it written in pencil on the maps Siurd von Steyr!
"Have you any statement to make?" demanded Von Steyr. Jack's teeth were clenched, his throat contracted, he was choking. Everything around him swam in darkness a darkness lit by little flames; his veins seemed bursting.
Von Steyr turned and seized a horse, throwing himself heavily across the saddle; the surgeon and the two seconds scrambled into their saddles, and the remaining pair of Uhlans, already mounted, wheeled their horses and galloped headlong into the woods. Jack saw Rickerl set his foot in the stirrup, but his horse was restive and started, dragging him.
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