"
Roden, who was smoking, threw his cigarette away. "You mean to do both
these things?"
"Both."
Roden looked at him. He opened his lips to speak, but suddenly leapt
back.
"Look out!" he cried, and had barely time to point over Cornish's
shoulder.
Cornish swung round on his heel. He belonged to a school and generation
which, with all its faults, has, at all events, the redeeming quality
of courage. He had long learnt to say the right thing, which
effectually teaches men to do the right thing also. He saw some one
running towards him, noiselessly, in rubber shoes. He had no time to
think, and scarce a moment in which to act, for the man was but two
steps away with an upraised arm, and in the lamplight there flashed the
gleam of steel.
Cornish concentrated his attention on the upraised arm, seizing it with
both hands, and actually swinging his assailant off his legs. He knew
in an instant who it was, without needing to recognize the smell of
malgamite. This was Otto von Holzen, who had not hesitated to state his
opinion--that it is often worth a man's while to kill another.
While his feet were still off the ground, Cornish let him go, and he
staggered away into the darkness of the trees. Cornish, who was lithe
and quick, rather than of great physical force, recovered his balance
in a moment, and turned to face the trees. He knew that Von Holzen
would come back. He distinctly hoped that he would.
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