He had not time, for Horace North literally flung himself upon the savage and drove him from his prey, but only to be grasped in turn by one whose greatest pleasure was destruction, and whose unpleasant mouth expanded into a satisfied grin as he bore back the body of his weaker adversary, and with it a good deal of the future of Mary and Leo Salis linked in with that of half the village of Duke’s Hampton.
“Ah, would yer! it’s my turn now.”
The vengeance of his class against what he called a “swell.”
Chapter Three.
Science at Work.
Horace North was more of the student than the athlete, and he felt the blood rushing to his head—a strange sensation of vertigo which he could have aptly described in writing, and thoroughly expressed, with all due detail, the action going on by the compression of certain veins and an artery. But for a few moments, in the mêlée, he could do nothing to free himself of the savage grip, which threatened to injure him for life, if it did not quite destroy.
But science is a fine backer of brute force. A man with little muscle is the equal of a giant when both are armed with sword or pistol; and could Horace North have brought his science to bear in the shape of galvanism or some anaesthetic, he would have had the burly giant at his mercy instead of rapidly losing his senses.
Galvanism was, however, not at hand, the opportunity to administer a dose of ether or chloroform was also wanting, and as one of the young doctor’s hands vainly grasped the ruffian’s sinewy wrist, the other fell nearly nerveless upon the table against which he was borne.