Jake swung the little, flexuous club softly against his palm, and Gordon suddenly realized that the cripple intended to kill him.--That was the lust which transfigured the gambler's countenance, which lit the fires in the deathly cheeks, set the long fingers shaking. Gordon considered the idea, and, obscurely, it troubled him, moved him a space from his apathy. Instinctively, in response to a sudden movement of the figure above him, he drew his arm up in front of his head; and an intolerable pain shot up through his shoulder and flared, blindingly, in his eyes. It pierced his indifference, set in motion his reason, his memory; he realized the necessity, the danger, of his predicament ... the money!--he must guard it, take it back with him. Above, in a heated, orange mist, the woman's face loomed blank and inhuman; farther back Mr. Ottinger's features were indistinctly visible. He must rise.... His groping hand caught hold of the rung of the chair, and, with herculean labor, he turned and raised himself a fraction from the floor. Jake directed a hasty blow at his head that missed him altogether. His other hand caught the chair, and he dragged himself dizzily into a kneeling posture. A sudden change swept over the three above him. "Nail him where he is!" Em cried excitedly; "he's getting up on you." Gordon's hands moved uncertainly upward on the chair; his knees rose from the floor. A shower of blows fell on him; the woman beat him with her pudgy fists; Mr. Ottinger was kicking at him; Jake was weeping, and endeavoring to get room in which to swing his club. Gordon had one foot on the floor. "Give me a chance at him," Jake implored; "give me a chance. God, if I had a knife." If they took away the chair, Gordon knew, he was lost. He clung to it; pressed his breast against it; crept upward by means of it, slowly, slowly, through a storm of battering hands. It seemed to him that, in rising, he was shouldering aside the entire weight, the forces, of a universe, bent on his destruction, and against which he was determined to prevail. It was as though his will, the vitality which animated him, which was his soul, stood aside from his beaten and suffering body, and, with a cold, a cruel, detachment, commanded it upright. The woman's bulk got in Jake's way, and he struck her across the eyes with the back of his hand, consigning her to eternal hell. Mr. Ottinger, confused by the irregularity of the turmoil, worked inefficiently, swinging at random his hard fists, kicking impartially. Gordon now had both feet upon the floor; he straightened up. For a breath the three stood motionless, livid; and in that instant his hand fell upon the door knob, he staggered back into the hall, carrying with him a vision of his brocaded tie lying upon the floor. XII