“Never mind. We’ll make as sure as possible,” observed the Doctor, who throughout this rapid and laconic colloquy had endeavoured to appear as collected and as composed as possible: but his words had hissed through his teeth—for his mouth was as parched as if he had been swallowing the dry dust of the road.
“Let’s over the hedge, then,” said Vitriol Bob.
The two men accordingly made their way into the adjoining field; and having proceeded to a short distance down the sloping meadow, they suddenly stopped short and confronted each other.
“Shall it be here?” demanded Vitriol Bob.
“Yes,” responded Jack Rily; and drawing his clasp-knife, which was already open, from his pocket, he sprang with a savage howl upon his enemy.
But Vitriol Bob was also prepared with his sharp weapon; and catching the Doctor’s right arm with his left hand, he inflicted a wound upon the shoulder upon his foe. Then the two men closed completely upon each other—and the death-struggle commenced!
It was an appalling spectacle,—the knives flashing in the pure moon-light—and the eyes of the miscreants glaring savagely, while they writhed in each other’s embrace, savage howls bursting from them at short intervals.
In less than a minute they were covered with blood: but the nature of the contest only permitted them to inflict hideous gashes and not decisive wounds upon each other. But suddenly Jack Rily’s foot slipped, and he fell backward—bringing however his adversary down upon him: for the left hand of each held a firm grasp upon the collar of the other.
As they thus tumbled, Vitriol Bob endeavoured to plant his knife in the breast of his antagonist—but the spring of the weapon broke, and the blade suddenly closing as it glanced over the Doctor’s shoulder, cut through its owner’s fingers to the very bone. A yell of mingled rage and pain escaped him; but the chances were at the same moment equalised by the fact of Rily’s clasp-knife escaping from his hand.
The death-struggle was now continued by mere brute force; and the Doctor succeeded in getting uppermost. At the same time he seized upon Vitriol Bob’s nose with his large sharp teeth and bit it completely off—in spite of the almost superhuman efforts of the other to resist this savage attack.