one could have stayed his arm before he struck. Oh, no! But quite
lightly, from below, with a short jerk, exactly as he had learned by
experience in battle. The hunting-knife was as good as his bayonet. It
ran into the flesh like butter.

Then everything came about just as it always did. John Bogdan stood with
his chin forward and saw the lord's face distorted by anger suddenly
smooth out and turn as placid and even as if it had been ironed. He saw
his eyes widen and look over at him in astonishment with the reproachful
question, "What are you doing?" The one thing Bogdan did not see was the
collapsing of the lord's body, for at that instant a blow crashed down
on the back of his head, like the downpour of a waterfall dropping from
an infinite height. For one second he still saw Marcsa's face framed in
a fiery wheel, then, his skull split open, he fell over on top of his
master, whose body already lay quivering on the ground.