standing over me, empty bottle in one hand, revolver in the other,
and murder itself in the purple puckers of his raging face. His
language I will not even pretend to indicate: his skinny throat
swelled and trembled with the monstrous volleys. He could smile
at my appearance in his wife's clothes; he would have had my blood
for the last bottle of his best champagne. His eyes were not hidden
now; they needed no eyeglass to prop them open; large with fury,
they started from the livid mask. I watched nothing else. I could
not understand why they should start out as they did. I did not try.
I say I watched nothing else - until I saw the face of Raffles over
the unfortunate officer's shoulder.

Raffles had crept in unheard while our altercation was at its height,
had watched his opportunity, and stolen on his man unobserved by
either of us. While my own attention was completely engrossed, he
had seized the colonel's pistol-hand and twisted it behind the
colonel's back until his eyes bulged out as I have endeavored to
describe. But the fighting man had some fight in him still; and
scarcely had I grasped the situation when he hit out venomously
behind with the bottle, which was smashed to bits on Raffles's shin.
Then I threw my strength into the scale; and before many minutes we
had our officer gagged and bound in his chair. But it was not one
of our bloodless victories. Raffles had been cut to the bone by
the broken glass; his leg bled wherever he limped; and the fierce
eyes of the bound man followed the wet trail with gleams of sinister
satisfaction.

I thought I had never seen a man better bound or better gagged. But
the humanity seemed to have run out of Raffles with his blood. He
tore up tablecloths, he cut down blind-cords, he brought the