No answer was made, and Praga put in words the thought that flashed upon me.
"Don't think of trying to escape. You won't do it this time." He spoke sternly, adding, in the previous mocking tone, "And what brings you out for horse exercise at this uncanny hour, most noble?"
The reply was sudden and unexpected by me, but not by the Corsican.
Von Nauheim drew a revolver, and fired point-blank at Praga, and then dashed his heels into his horse's sides, and tried to make off. But the other was fully prepared for the manœuvre, and when the noise of the shot, which frightened Minna excessively, and woke the echoes of the woods round us, had died away, I saw that the Corsican had grasped the bridle of von Nauheim's horse in a grip of steel, till the beast swerved round and nearly unhorsed its rider, while with his other hand Praga had struck the revolver from his opponent's grasp.
Then he laughed again.
"A hand is rarely steady when a man's shivering with fright," he said in his bantering tone; but he changed it swiftly, and, in a voice deep with passion, he cried, "Get off your horse, you coward, or I'll drag you from your saddle! Do you hear?"
Von Nauheim made no reply, and no effort to dismount.
"Do you hear me? Dismount!" thundered the Corsican, his deep, rolling voice vibrating with wrath; and when von Nauheim still hesitated, Praga bent forward, and, with a strength that surprised me, tore him from his horse, and forced him to the ground.
Von Nauheim seemed helpless with terror.
"What is he going to do?" asked Minna, shivering.