“_Fancy_ you do!” savagely exclaimed Woodruff, stamping the ground with rage; “this contradiction is enough to drive me mad. I _know_ it! _You_ know it. There is no fancy in the case. It is an excuse, a vile pretence, a lie of seventeen years' standing. It was a lie at first. Will you set me free?” “It cannot be,” said the doctor; “go to your room.” “It _shall_ be!” replied Woodruff; “I will not go.” “Then I must call assistance,” observed Rowel, as he attempted to approach the door at which he had entered. “You shall not!” replied the patient, placing himself in front of the doctor, as though resolutely bent on preventing his approach to the door, although he had not the least use of his arms, which might have enabled him to effect his purpose. “Stand aside, fool!” Rowel exclaimed, as he threw out his right arm in order to strike off the intruder. But Woodruff anticipated him; and, by a sudden and dexterous thrust of his foot in a horizontal line, knocked the doctor's legs from under him, and set him sprawling on the ground. Woodruff fell upon him instantly, in order to keep him down, and to stifle the loud cries of “Robson! Robson!” which were now issuing in rapid succession from the doctor's larynx. At the same time a tremendous struggle, rendered still more desperate by the doctor's fears, took place on the ground; during which the unhappy Woodruff strove so violently to disengage his hands from the ligatures of the waistcoat which bound him, that the blood gushed copiously from his mouth and nostrils. His efforts were not altogether unavailing. He partly disengaged one hand; and, with a degree of activity and energy only to be accounted for from the almost superhuman spirit which burned within him, and for which his antagonist, with all his advantages, was by no means an equal match, he succeeded in planting his forefinger and thumb, like the bite of a crocodile upon the doctor's throat. [Illustration: 301] “Swear to let me free, or I 'll kill you!” he exclaimed. “Yes,--y--e--s,--I sw--ear!” gurgled through the windpipe of Dr. Rowel as he kicked and plunged like a horse in a bog to shake off his foe. The light of a lamp flashed upon them, and Robson rushed into the yard. “Let me out!” again demanded Woodruff. “I will; I will!” replied the doctor. Before Robson could interfere, the grasp upon his neck was loosed, and Woodruff stood quietly upon his feet. The doctor soon followed. “Seize him, Robson!” said he; and, in an instant, before Woodruff was aware, the strong man had him grasped as in a vice. “You swore to set me free!” cried the patient. “Yes,” replied the doctor, with a triumphant sneer, as he followed the keeper until he had pitched Woodruff into his room, and secured the entrance; “Yes,” he repeated, staring maliciously at his prisoner through the little barred opening in the door,--“yes, you shall be let out--_of this cell into that yard again_, when you have grown a little tamer!” CHAPTER XVI.