"How dare you show yourself here?" began Basil Annesley.
"Who are you to prevent me? I come to demand the restoration of that which belongs to me. Take my message to those two ladies and say I will have my boy," replied my lord.
"Do not try to impose on me, Lord Blackadder. It is the most impudent pretence; you know perfectly well he is not here."
"I will not bandy words with you. Go in, you men, both of you, Tiler and Falfani, and seize the child. Force your way in, push that blackguard aside!" he roared in a perfect paroxysm of passion.
I could not possibly hold aloof, but called for help from the hotel people, and, with them at my back, rushed out to add my protest against this intemperate conduct.
A free fight had already begun. The three assailants, Ralph Blackadder behind egging them on, had thrown themselves upon Basil, who stood sturdily at bay with his back to the wall, daring them to come on, and prepared to strike out at the first man who touched him.
"At him! Give it him! Throw him out!" cried Ralph passionately. But even as he spoke his voice weakened, he halted abruptly; his hands went up into the air, his body swayed to and fro, his strength left him completely, and he fell to the ground in sudden and complete collapse. When they picked him up, there was froth mixed with blood upon his lips, he breathed once or twice heavily, stertorously, and then with one long-drawn gasp died in the arms of his two men.
It was an apoplectic seizure, the doctors told us later, brought on by excessive nervous irritation of the brain.