CHAPTER XVI
THE FALL OF SANTENEL.
With difficulty Frank Merriwell held himself in check. He was in a towering rage, and the impulse was strong in him to hurl himself on the prostrate form of Dion Santenel. He felt an awful thirst for the life of the wretch who lay on the floor before him, sent there by a mighty blow of his fist. Twice before had such a feeling come to him—once when he struggled with Sport Harris on the rotten bridge in England, and again when he overthrew Santenel in Louisville and held his life, as it were, in the hollow of his hand.
“You miserable whelp!” he panted, looking with loathing and contempt into the face of the man who had sought his father’s ruin and death.
He cast a quick glance at his father, who had dropped down, crouching, into the chair by the marble-topped center-table.
Though Santenel had now entirely recovered consciousness, he lay cowering on the floor, in deadly fear of the young athlete whose wrath he had felt. The fierce fire had gone out of his shining black eyes, to be replaced by a gleam that was full of subdued and cowardly hate.
Then he recollected that he had come to the room, not in the person of Dion Santenel, or Brandon Drood, or even of Hector King, but as “Fisher Stokes,” the mining speculator and stock-broker of Denver.
“You are making a mistake!” he cried quickly. “I don’t know why you knocked me down as you did. I’d have you know, sir, that I am Fisher Stokes, of Denver, stock-broker and mining speculator. And I shall have you arrested for this insult and for your unwarranted blow!”
“Bah!” Frank sneered. “Put these on, will you?”
He snatched up the false mustache and imperial which he had torn from the man’s face but a few moments before, and flung them at him.
Santenel sank back, pale and trembling. He saw that further lies and threats would not serve him. The fire died out of his eyes, to be replaced by a look of pleading. He glanced toward the door.