Well, I am ready. But here the shadow is bad. Let us go to the
obelisks and stand each back to one. There is a passable light there."
"As you will." I went directly out into the middle of the Piazza, and he
followed--with my life between his wild hands.
I know not to this hour whether that act of mine was one of sublime
courage or of the crassest folly; I remember that I strode blithely
forward, and that he followed; that some chance thing or another caused
me to turn my head--the sun burning in a casement, a pigeon, a cat, some
speck of accident. That motion saved my life, for immediately afterwards
I heard the report, and felt the ball flicker through my hair. The fiend
had gouged him again, and he had tried to murder me. At that certainty,
in all the fury of disgust that came with it, my stomach turned, and I
was possessed by blind rage. I rounded full upon him, and he must have
seen cold death in my eyes, for round went he too and ran for his life.
I pelted after him.
He made for the angle of the church whence he had come. There were
railings there about a loggia, much broken down, by which, I suppose, he
hoped to get some sort of a screen, but I intended him to fight me in
the Piazza, so increased my speed, and cut him off that retreat. He
doubled, and scoured past the steps of the church, round by the
hospital, making for the Via del Fosso; I cut a segment of his circle
and stopped him there. Round he span, slavering at the lips, and went
dead over the Piazza, to the obelisks, I so close on his traces that I
could not have missed him if I had chosen for murder.
Pages:
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242