For a moment I was too stunned to act. Then I hurled myself upon the
man, as he sat with that placid smile of his upon his lips, and I would
have torn his throat out had the three wretches not dragged me away from
him. Again and again I made for him, panting and cursing, shaking off
this man and that, straining and wrenching, but never quite free. At
last, with my jacket torn nearly off my back and blood dripping from my
wrists, I was hauled backwards in the bight of a rope and cords passed
round my ankles and my arms.

'You sleek hound!' I cried. 'If ever I have you at my sword's point, I
will teach you to maltreat one of my lads. You will find, you
bloodthirsty beast, that my Emperor has long arms, and though you lie
here like a rat in its hole, the time will come when he will tear you
out of it, and you and your vermin will perish together.'

My faith, I have a rough side to my tongue, and there was not a hard
word that I had learned in fourteen campaigns which I did not let fly at
him; but he sat with the handle of his pen tapping against his forehead
and his eyes squinting up at the roof as if he had conceived the idea of
some new stanza. It was this occupation of his which showed me how I
might get my point into him.

'You spawn!' said I; 'you think that you are safe here, but your life
may be as short as that of your absurd verses, and God knows that it
could not be shorter than that.'

Ah, you should have seen him bound from his chair when I said the words.
This vile monster, who dispensed death and torture as a grocer serves
out his figs, had one raw nerve then which I could prod at pleasure. His
face grew livid, and those little bourgeois side-whiskers quivered and