At that moment, as the devil would have it, a tremendous sneeze was heard under the bed.
"Madre de Dios! there is some one concealed here!" exclaimed little Tilly, starting up with lire glaring in his eyes, as he unsheathed his long rapier. "Look under that bed, Bandolo, while I prick the tapestry."
Drawing his poniard, Bandolo raised the little curtain which surrounded the rails of the bed, on looking below which he was instantly grasped and dragged down by the strong hands of Dandy Dreghorn, who (rendered desperate by finding discovery inevitable, and knowing that we had but two assailants) encircled the bull-neck of the powerful Spanish ruffian with a tiger-like clutch, and rolled him on the floor, shouting—
"Strike in, Maister Rollo—strike in, for gudesake! Gie that auld wallydraigel in the breeks a jagg wi your dirk, while I pu' this ane through the heckle-pins!"
Taken completely by surprise, Bandolo was almost smothered by the dust under the bed, where he was so suddenly and ignominiously rolled. He struck furiously and at random with his poniard till the blade broke against the oak planks of the floor, down upon which Dandy pressed his throat until he was nearly strangled, vociferating all the time—
"I'll cheat the wuddy o' ye, that I will! Hech, ye damned tyke, think ye I'll ever lippen to a bodach that wore breeks!" Then he came forth panting and breathless.
Seeing that without one desperate venture all was over with us, I had rushed from my hiding-place, thrown down the table, extinguished the lights, closed with the frail, old Tilly, and escaping a pistol-shot, which he fired within a yard of my nose, wrested and tore away from his hand the long rapier with which he menaced me. Had I chosen, I could there have run it through his heart, and saved Denmark, yea, and Germany, from the Thirty Years' War; but he was an aged man, and I was not an assassin.
"Awa, sir—awa! Hide or rin, flee or soom—let us awa, or we'll tyne our lives!" cried Dreghorn, and we rushed from the dark apartment, to find the corridor and staircase crowded by Reitres and pikemen, with drawn swords, lighted torches, and stable lanterns; for the uproar and the pistol-shot had alarmed Tilly's guard of honour, and brought all the soldiers, like a swarm of hornets, to his rescue.
"Dreghorn—farewell to life," said I; "it is all over with us!"
"We've owre mony maisters noo," he groaned; "as the puddock said, whan ilka tuith o' the harrow gied him a tid."