So the highwayman suddenly ducked his head and like a wall-breaking, battering ram, dealt such a blow with his head to Lorand, that the latter fell back on to the bench, and while he was forced to let go of the rascal with his left, he was obliged with his armed right hand to defend himself against the coming attack.
Then the robber pointed the barrel of the second pistol at his forehead.
"Now it is my turn to say, 'don't stir,' student."
In that short moment, as Lorand gazed into the barrel of the pistol that was levelled at his forehead, there flashed through his mind this thought:
"Now is the moment for checkmating the curse of fate and avoiding the threatened suicide. He who loses his life in the defence of persecuted and defenceless travellers dies as a man of honor. Let us see this death."
He rose suddenly before the levelled weapon.
"Don't move or you are a dead man," the thief cried again to him.
But Lorand, face to face with the pistol levelled within a foot of his head calmly put his finger to the trigger of the weapon he himself held and drew it back.
At this the thief suddenly sprang back and rushed to the door, so alarmed that at first he attempted to open it the wrong way.
Lorand took careful aim at him.