Читать книгу Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate. A Scottish Historical Romance онлайн

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"No help is nigh thee!" answered Nichol Birrel, with his hyæna-like laugh; "but curses choke thee, take thy hand from my throat!" and he raised his arm for the death-stroke, but Roland caught his descending hand by the wrist, while with a blow of his foot he hurled the third assailant, Sanders Screw, to the very bottom of the close. A howl from Birrel, at the same moment, announced that his companion had wounded him again, a mistake which raised his demon-spirit to a frightful pitch; and furiously he strove to free his wrist, and stab Roland between the joint of his corslet and gorget. His eyes filled with a yellow light; he panted rather than breathed; he seemed no longer a man, but a devil!

Suddenly Roland found this maddened assailant had become too strong for him; and once again, but more feebly (for he had received a wound in the shoulder), he cried—

"Armour and rescue!"

"Knight and gentleman though ye be," panted Birrel—"by hell! I will have thy blood for mine! Strike again, Dobbie, thou coward and dog! Ho, my gay cannonier, ye are as a dead man now!"