'Have done!' I hissed. 'Be still, or you are a dead man!'
'Martin Schwartz!' he cried, with a frightful oath.
'Yes,' I rejoined; 'and mark me, if you raise a finger, I fire.'
He glared at me, and so we stood a moment. Then I said, 'Push that pistol to me with your foot. Don't put out your hand, or it will be the worse for you.'
He looked at me for a moment, his face distorted with rage, as if he were minded to disobey at all risks; then he drew up his foot sullenly and set it against the pistol. I stepped back a pace and for an instant took my eyes from his--intending to snatch up the firearm as soon as it was out of his reach. In that instant he dashed out the light with his foot; I heard him spring up--and we were in darkness.
The surprise was complete, and I did not fire; but I had the presence of mind, believing that he had secured his pistol, to change my position--almost as quickly as he changed his. However, he did not fire; and so there we were in the pitchy darkness of the room, both armed, and neither knowing where the other stood.
I felt every nerve in my body tingle; but with rage, not fear. I dared not change my position again, lest a creaking board should betray me, now all was silent; but I crouched low in the darkness with the pistol in one hand and my knife drawn in the other, and listened for his breathing. The same consideration--we were both heavy men--kept him motionless also; and I remember to this day, that as we waited, scarcely daring to breathe--and for my part each moment expecting the flash and roar of a shot--one of the city clocks struck slowly and solemnly ten.
The strokes ceased. In the room I could not hear a sound, and I felt nervously round me with my knife; but without avail. I crouched still lower, lower, with a beating heart. The curtain obscured the window, there was no moon, no light showed under the door. The darkness was so complete that, but for a kind of fainter blackness that outlined the window, I could not have said in what part of the room I stood.
Suddenly a sharp loud 'thud' broke the silence. It seemed to come from a point so close to me that I almost fired on that side before I could control my fingers. The next moment I knew that it was well I had not. It was Ludwig's knife flung at a venture--and now buried, as I guessed, an inch deep in the door--which had made the noise. Still, the action gave me a sort of inkling where he was, and, noiselessly facing round a trifle, I raised my pistol, and waited for some movement that might direct my aim.
I feared that he had a second knife; I hoped that in drawing it from its sheath he would make some noise. But all was still. Sharpen my ears as I might, I could hear nothing; strain my eyes as I might, I could see no shadow, no bulk in the darkness. A silence as of death prevailed. I could scarcely believe that he was still in the room. My courage, hot and fierce at first, began to wane under the trial. I felt the point of his knife already in my back; I winced and longed to be sheltered by the wall, yet dared not move to go to it. In another minute I think I should have fired at a sheer venture, rather than bear the strain longer; but at last a sound broke on my ear. The sound was not in the room, but in the house below. Some one was coming up the stairs.