once gave to some little Lord Leopold Dawdle.

So Randal now brought his experience and art to bear; put aside those
heavy roundabout blows, and darted in his own, quick and sharp, supplying
to the natural feebleness of his arm the due momentum of pugilistic
mechanics. Ay, and the arm, too, was no longer so feeble; for strange is
the strength that comes from passion and pluck!

Poor Lenny, who had never fought before, was bewildered; his sensations
grew so entangled that he could never recall them distinctly; he had a
dim reminiscence of some breathless impotent rush, of a sudden blindness
followed by quick flashes of intolerable light, of a deadly faintness,
from which he was roused by sharp pangs--here--there--everywhere; and
then all he could remember was, that he was lying on the ground, huddled
up and panting hard, while his adversary bent over him with a countenance
as dark and livid as Lara himself might have bent over the fallen Otho.
For Randal Leslie was not one who, by impulse and nature, subscribed to
the noble English maxim, "Never hit a foe when he is down;" and it cost
him a strong, if brief, self-struggle not to set his heel on that
prostrate form. It was the mind, not the heart, that subdued the savage
within him, as muttering something inwardly--certainly not Christian
forgiveness--the victor turned gloomily away.




CHAPTER IV.

Just at that precise moment, who should appear but Mr. Stirn! For, in
fact, being extremely anxious to get Lenny into disgrace, he had hoped