I looked at him with consternation. He was glancing at a letter which
he held at arm's length, and snorting, as it were, at it as he gazed.
The lower part of his face was stern, but not as rigid as usual. He
was slowly grinding between his teeth the fragments of the glass he had
just been drinking from. Suddenly he seized one of his servants, and,
forcing the wretch upon his knees, exclaimed, with the roar of a
tiger:--
"Dog! why was this kept from me?"
"Why, please, sir, Miss Flora said as how it was a reconciliation from
Miss Brandagee, and it was to be kept from you where you would not be
likely to see it,--and--and--"
"Speak, dog! and you--"
"I put it among your bills, sir!"
With a groan, like distant thunder, Guy fell swooning to the floor.
He soon recovered, for the next moment a servant came rushing into the
room with the information that a number of the ingenuous peasantry of
the neighborhood were about to indulge that evening in the national
pastime of burning a farm-house and shooting a landlord. Guy smiled a
fearful smile, without, however, altering his stern and pitiless
expression.
"Let them come," he said calmly; "I feel like entertaining company."
We barricaded the doors and windows, and then chose our arms from the
armory. Guy's choice was a singular one: it was a landing net with a
long handle, and a sharp cavalry sabre.
We were not destined to remain long in ignorance of its use. A howl
was heard from without, and a party of fifty or sixty armed men
precipitated themselves against the door.
Suddenly the window opened. With the rapidity of lightning, Guy
Heavystone cast the net over the head of the ringleader, ejaculated
"Habet!" and with a back stroke of his cavalry sabre severed the member
from its trunk, and, drawing the net back again, cast the gory head
upon the floor, saying quietly:--
"One."
Again the net was cast, the steel flashed, the net was withdrawn, and
an ominous "Two!" accompanied the head as it rolled on the floor.
"Do you remember what Pliny says of the gladiator?" said Guy, calmly
wiping his sabre. "How graphic is that passage commencing 'Inter nos,
etc.'" The sport continued until the heads of twenty desperadoes had
been gathered in. The rest seemed inclined to disperse. Guy
incautiously showed himself at the door; a ringing shot was heard, and
he staggered back, pierced through the heart. Grasping the door-post in
the last unconscious throes of his mighty frame, the whole side of the
house yielded to that earthquake tremor, and we had barely time to
escape before the whole building fell in ruins. I thought of Samson,
the Giant Judge, etc., etc.; but all was over.
Guy Heavystone had died as he had lived,--HARD.
MR. MIDSHIPMAN BREEZY.
A NAVAL OFFICER.
BY CAPTAIN M--RRY--T, R. N.
CHAPTER I.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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