The answer came suddenly from behind them within the vault as Khodkine, rushing blindly in the darkness at the sound, brought up against Rowland, who twisted around in his grasp, freeing his right hand, which struck blindly, harmlessly, and then at last found Khodkine's throat.
"Go, Mademoiselle," gasped Rowland. "It--it is better--I will----"
Something told him that Khodkine had another weapon and as he felt the man free his right arm he caught at it desperately, pinioning it to his side. His wrist ... a knife ... everything depended upon the knife.... He released the throat and while blows rained upon his head and shoulders twisted Khodkine's wrist with both hands until he heard the knife go clattering upon the floor.
"Even terms, Monsieur," he gasped, as body to body they swayed from side to side in the darkness.
"You--fool," stammered the other. "To risk--fortune--on this madness----"
"My--risk," grinned Rowland through his blood and sweat.
Rowland, thinking of Tanya and of Germany fought with cool desperation, his arms around Khodkine, crushing, crushing the very breath from his body. The man was weakening. Powerful as he was, his muscles had not been trained as the American's had been in three years of life in the open.
"A truce--Monsieur," Khodkine whispered hoarsely. But Rowland did not hear him and bore him back against the shelves to the left, where their feet stumbled over the pile of packages that Rowland had dropped, and they fell, Rowland uppermost, upon the floor.
All the fight was out of Monsieur Khodkine by this time, and he lay prone while Rowland, the fog of battle still upon him, clutched with his bony fingers even after the man had stopped resisting. It was only when the American realized how tired his fingers were that he sat upon Khodkine's stomach, somewhat bewildered as to what had happened, aware after a moment that his shoulder ached him badly and that his chest burned from his labored breathing, but otherwise that he was quite sound and cheerful.
"Do you give it up, you blighter?" he gasped in English, at last, relapsing into the argot of his platoon of the Legion. "You've got enough?"