“Liar!” muttered Richard between his teeth as he struck out with his left full at Mark’s mouth, sending him staggering back, but only to recover directly and come on furiously again.
There was only another round, and it was very short.
Richard Frayne, with every nerve twitching with rage and indignation, followed up his second blow with others, planted so truly, and with such effect, that within a minute he was driving his adversary back step by step, till, blind now with fury, he put all his strength and weight into a blow which sent Mark down like a piece of wood, to lie, inert, with his head resting against the broken, lichen-covered fragment of an arch.
“Steady! Hold hard!” shouted a couple of voices, and the two young fellow-pupils, who had followed, leaped down through a broken window, from whence, hidden by the ivy, they had watched the fray.
“You second Dick Frayne,” cried the first, “and I’ll see to Mark.”
Richard hardly heard what was said, for there was a sound as of surging waters in his ears, followed by a roar of words that seemed to thunder.
For, as the last speaker went down on one knee to raise up the fallen lad, he uttered a cry of horror, and then let the young man’s head hurriedly down, to shrink away with his hands fouled by blood.
“What is it?” cried the other, running forward; while Richard’s hands clutched at the air. “What is it?—cut?”
“Cut!” sobbed out the other. “A doctor!—quick! Dick Frayne, what have you done? He’s dead!”