XXXIX
Day After To-morrow
The pair stood eyeing each other like two fencers, Dick with the crowbar raised, and pointing at his heart the blade which would pierce it when the Spaniard dared advance an inch.
I longed to shout “Fling the crowbar at his head!” But if Dick's eye released the eye of his opponent he was a dead man, I must not risk distracting him for the fraction of a second.
It seemed an hour, though it could not have been a minute when, as if my thought had winged to his brain, the thick iron bar whirled through the air, and struck the old man full upon the forehead. The Toledo blade dropped from his hand, and he fell back without a cry, his head inside the open door.
“Is he dead?” I called.
Dick bent over the limp body; but, after a long moment, he was up again, waving a big, old-fashioned key.
“No,” he answered. “Heart beating. Bad penny. He'll be all right. This the key of spider's parlour?”
“I think so,” I said. “Dick, you're just in time to keep me from giving in. I'm starved.”