A bright gleam of steel slanted toward Cyrus's shoulder. But the deft Greek had seen it. He chopped with his stick. The knife whirled free and descended. Like a football team plunging for a loose ball, the contestants dived for it. For a moment they groveled, struggling. Then out of the mass rose a shriek of the uttermost agony. It seemed to me that the group was stricken into sudden silence and immobility. Slowly it disintegrated, drawing apart in two sections. A half-doubled figure ran, staggering and dodging, into the shadows. A policeman's whistle shrilled. The gangsters turned and ran. Mine ran too. He tried, I regret to say, to give me a parting kick as I let him up. On the ground lay the knife. There was just a little trickle of red on it.
Cyrus picked it up and looked around. Every man of our party was battered, but none was stabbed.
“Must have got his own man in the mix-up,” quoth the Little Red Doctor. “Come to my place and get fixed up.” After much minor repairing with plaster and patch we separated upon our respective ways, disheveled, disreputable, but exultant. Orpheus, with his face one mass of cuts and bruises, went back, if you will believe it, to play the final “Bohême” to the little beam of light in the window.
“I hope,” he whispered to me, “that she could not hear the noise. It would frighten her.”
In consideration of my strained back the Little Red Doctor escorted me home. As we set foot to the steps we heard a soft groan from the black areaway. From between two barrels the physician dragged a cowering wretch. His hands were pressed to his abdomen. There was a pool of blood where he had crouched.
“The Samaritan Hospital for you,” said the Little Red Doctor.
“Not me!” snarled the youth. “Guess again.”
“Got any last message?” asked the doctor coolly.
The young fellow's eyelids fluttered. “Am I croaked?” he said.
“Unless you're on the table within the hour.”