Wachis let his cudgel fall and swung his arms to and fro.
"Listen, Cacus, I have another crow to pluck with thee besides; thou knowest wherefore. Now it can all be done with at the same time."
"Ha, ha!" cried Cacus with a mocking laugh, "about Liuta, the flaxen-haired wench? Bah! I like her no longer, the barbarian. She dances like a heifer!"
"Now it's all up with thee," said Wachis quietly, and caught hold of his adversary.
But Cacus twisted himself like an eel out of the grasp of the Goth, pulled a sharp knife from the folds of his woollen frock and threw it at him. As Wachis stooped the knife whistled only a hair's-breadth past his head, and penetrated deeply into the door-post behind him.
"Well, wait, thou murderous worm!" cried the German, and would have thrown himself upon Cacus, but he felt himself clasped from behind.
It was Davus, who had watched for this moment of revenge.
But now Wachis became exceedingly wroth.
He shook the man off, held him by the nape of the neck with his left hand, got hold of Cacus with his right, and, with the strength of a bear, knocked the heads of his adversaries together, accompanying every knock with an interjection, "There, my boys--that for the knife--and that for the back-spring--and that for the heifer!" And who knows how long this strange litany would have continued, if he had not been interrupted by a loud call.
"Wachis! Cacus! let loose, I tell you," cried the strong fall voice of a woman; and a stately matron, clad in a blue Gothic garment, appeared at the door.