KESS’ “tog fighdt” wasn’t up to his expectations, either in its manner or in its finish.
An interminable time passed before anything occurred, and then Villum had to start it. The room was vacated, the lights were out, and it was deathly cold. Dickey had put up his shutters, locked his doors, and had gone home. The time was wearing on toward morning, and still the man behind Kess under the cot lay there, with no more movement than if he had died or had been turned to stone.
Villum crawled out at last, in desperation. He had long been expecting a knife in his back or a revolver shot.
“Yoost der same I know you, uff you ton’dt sbeak idt,” he announced. “I haf got a rewolver vot iss full uff bullets to idts neck, unt uff you shoodt me I vill shoodt you likevise undil you ar-re deadt. So, you come oudt uff idt kvick!”
When the man did not come out, nor move, nor speak, Villum solemnly scratched a match on his trousers and flung it, flaming, under the cot, at the imminent risk of setting the cot and the house on fire.
The instant dying out of the match was followed by an earthquake; the light cot rose violently in air, and, whirling over, it fell on Villum, bringing him to the floor in a smother of bed clothing.
While he struggled to throw off the bed coverings and mattress, Villum heard the man unbar and fling aside a shutter and smash a window; they were resounding crashes, and the breaking of the window was accompanied by a tinkling fall of glass.
Villum had rammed one foot through the wire mesh of the bed springs, and felt like a wolf in a trap; but he scrambled toward the window, where he now saw the starlight and the man climbing up to escape; Villum was dragging the bed springs with him, and the greater part of the coverings of the cot.
“No you ton’dt escabe me!” he cried, and made a sweeping reach with his hands.
Though he was thrown down by the dragging weight of the bed springs, he clutched the man by the coat tails, and when, in his desperation, the man flung himself through to the ground, one of the tails of his coat remained in Villum’s hands.