“Get out of here!” he screamed, when he had regained the power of speech. “Get out of here, and tell your harlot never to show her face here again, or I will denounce her as a woman of the town!”
He got no farther, for I was upon him, all my blood in my face. I caught him up from the chair and smote him in the mouth with my open hand.
“You dog!” I cried. “You dog!” and I struck him again.
“Murder!” he shrieked. “Help! He is killing me!”
I heard steps rushing down the hallway and the door behind me opened. With a last blow I hurled Ribaut back into his chair and turned towards the door, facing a man whom, from his surpassing ugliness, I knew instantly to be Briquet. I had never seen a countenance more repulsive, and I looked at him with loathing.
“Who are you, Monsieur,” he cried, “and what do you here?”
“I am punishing that scoundrel yonder for daring to ask his niece to marry another scoundrel such as you!” I answered, and I looked him in the eyes, all my contempt in my face.
His face went from red to purple.
“Kill him!” screamed Ribaut from the chair where he sat, the blood streaming from nose and mouth. “It was he who took the girl from me.”
With an oath, Briquet snatched a pistol from his pocket. But I was too quick for him, for, seizing a chair, I knocked the barrel up even as he pulled the trigger and brought the chair down upon his head. He fell like an ox.