"Let it sparkle."
"I don't believe it cannot come off."
"It will not come off, for I shall not give it." At this moment the thief suddenly grasped the woman's hand in which she held the knife, seizing it by the wrist, and while she was writhing in desperate struggle against the iron grip, with his other hand thrust the end of his pistol in her mouth.
This awful scene had till now made upon Lorand the impression of the quarrel of a tipsy husband with his obstinate wife, who answers all his provocations with jesting: the lady seemed incapable of being frightened, the thief of frightening. Some unnatural indifference seemed to give the lie to that scene, which youthful imagination would picture so differently. The meeting of a thief with an unprotected lady, at night, in an inn on the plain! It was impossible that they should speak so to one another.
But as the robber seized the lady's hand, and leaning across the table, drew her by sheer force towards him, continually threatening the screaming woman with a pistol, the young man's blood suddenly boiled up within him. He leaped forward from the darkness, unnoticed by the thief, crept toward him and seized the rascal's right hand, in which he held the pistol, while with his other hand he tore the second pistol from the man's belt.
The highwayman, like some infuriated beast, turned upon his assailant, and strove to free his arm from the other's grip.
He felt he had to do with one whose wrist was as firm as his own.
"Student!" he snarled, with lips tightly drawn like a wolf, and gnashing his gleaming white teeth.
"Don't stir," said Lorand, pointing the pistol at his forehead.
The thief saw plainly that the pistol was not cocked: nor could Lorand have cocked it in this short time. Lorand, as a matter of fact, in his excitement had not thought of it.