That scene was over now, for as the big south door closed on Leo the struggle was at its fiercest, and Tom Candlish was getting the worst of the encounter.
“Loose my throat, North!” he cried. “So cursedly ungentlemanly.”
“Yes; I am dealing with a scoundrel, whom Hartley Salis thrashed, and I’ll thrash you too, you dog!”
As he spoke, he dealt with his now freed hand a fierce blow right between Tom Candlish’s eyes, making him stagger back.
But the triumph was momentary, for, rendered savage by the pain, the young squire flung himself upon his adversary, and bore him back as a jingling of a falling key was heard. The wrestling grew wilder and fiercer, and then Horace North felt as if his legs were suddenly enmeshed. He strove to free them, but in vain; and before he could recover the ground he had lost he was flung heavily, his head coming with a crash upon the stone floor, just where the matting did not cover it, and he lay without motion, and made no sound.
“Curse him for a fool! Let him lie there till he comes to,” panted Tom Candlish. “Where’s the key? What a fool! I heard it fall as we struggled. Matches? They went too, and if they didn’t I daren’t light one.”
He felt his way to the chancel door, but in his confusion he could not open it, as Leo had made it fast.
“She’s got away home by now,” muttered Candlish. “Where’s my hat? All right; I put it on the window-ledge. Hah!—yes, that will do.”
He stepped up on the oaken chest beneath the long, narrow window, opened the iron-framed casement, and, squeezing himself through, stood in a bent attitude, holding on for a few moments, and then leaped down into the black darkness.
A dull thud as he came down on the gravel, a crushing blow, followed by another rapidly given; a heavy groan, and then silence.