"Now, you brutes! I may be bested in the end, but I'll be even with one or two of you before I am!"
Lawrence stood up.
"Will you? That still remains to be seen. Shoot him, Baron!"
The Baron fired. Either his marksmanship, or his nerve, or his something, was at fault, for he missed. Before he could fire again Paxton's weapon had crashed through his grotesquely tall high hat, and apparently through his skull as well, for he too went headlong to the floor. Quick as lightning as he fell Cyril took his revolver from his nerveless grasp. Lawrence and his two colleagues were--a little late in the day, perhaps--making for him. But when they saw how he was doubly armed and his determined front they paused--and therein showed discretion.
The tables had turned. The fortune of war had gone over to what hitherto had been distinctly the losing side. So at least Paxton appeared to think.
"Now, the question is, what shall I do with you? Shall I shoot all three of you--or shall I brain one of you with this pretty little play-thing, which I have literally snatched from the burning?"
If one could draw deductions from the manner in which he bore himself, Lawrence never for an instant lost his presence of mind. When he spoke it was in the easy, quiet tones which he had used throughout.
"You move too fast, forgetting two things--one, that you are caught here like a rat in a trap, so that, unless we choose to let you, you cannot get out of this place alive; the other, that I have only to summon assistance to overwhelm you with the mere force of numbers."
"Then why don't you summon assistance, if you are so sure that it will come at your bidding?"
"I intend to summon assistance when I choose."