The Foreigner Part 12

"Ho, ho," laughed the Dalmatian, "so I brush away a fly."

With a face like a demon's, the Polak sprang at his big antagonist, an open knife in his hand, and jabbed him in the arm. For a moment the big man sat looking at his a.s.sailant as if amazed at his audacity. Then as he saw the blood running down his fingers he went mad, seized the Polak by the hair, lifted him clear out of his seat, carrying the plank table with him, and thereupon taking him by the back of the neck, proceeded to shake him till his teeth rattled in his head.

At almost the same instant the black-bearded man leaped across the fallen table like a tiger, at Rosenblatt's throat, and bore him down to the earthen floor in the dark corner. Sitting astride his chest, his knees on Rosenblatt's arms, and gripping him by the throat, he held him voiceless and helpless. Soon his victim lay still, looking up into his a.s.sailant's face in surprise, fear and rage unspeakable.

"Rosenblatt," said the bearded man in a soft voice, "you know me--me?"

"No," gasped Rosenblatt in terrible fury, "what do you--"

"Look," said the man. With his free hand he swept off the black beard which he stuffed into his pocket.

Rosenblatt looked. "Kalmar!" he gasped, terror in his eyes.

"Yes, Kalmar," replied the man.

"Help!--" The cry died at his teeth.

"No, no," said Kalmar, shutting his fingers upon his windpipe.

"No noise. We are to have a quiet moment here. They are all too busy to notice us. Listen." He leaned far down over the ghastly face of the wretched man beneath him. "Shall I tell you why I am here? Shall I remind you of your crimes? No, I need not. You remember them well, and in a few minutes you will be in h.e.l.l for them. Five years I froze and burned in Siberia, through you." As he said the word "you"

he leaned a little closer. His voice remained low and soft, but his eyes were blazing with a light as of madness. "For this moment,"

he continued gently, "I have hungered, thirsted, panted. Now it has come. I regret I must hurry a little. I should like to drink this sweet cup slowly, oh so slowly, drop by drop. But--ah, do not struggle, nor cry. It will only add to your pain. Do you see this?"

He drew from his pocket what seemed a knife handle, pressed a spring, and from this handle there shot out a blade, long, thin, murderous looking. "It has a sharp point, oh, a very sharp point." He p.r.i.c.ked Rosenblatt in the cheek, and as Rosenblatt squirmed, laughed a laugh of singular sweetness. "With this beautiful instrument I mean to pick out your eyes, and then I shall drive it down through your heart, and you will be dead. It will not hurt so very much," he continued in a tone of regret. "No no, not so very much; not so much as when you put out the light of my life, when you murdered my wife; not so much as when you pierced my heart in betraying my cause. See, it will not hurt so very much." He put the sharp blade against Rosenblatt's breast high up above the heart, and drove it slowly down through the soft flesh till he came to bone. Like a mad thing, his unhappy victim threw himself wildly about in a furious struggle. But he was like a babe in the hands that gripped him.

Kalmar laughed gleefully. "Aha! Aha! Good! Good! You give me much joy. Alas! it is so short-lived, and I must hurry. Now for your right eye. Or would you prefer the left first?"

As he released the pressure upon Rosenblatt's throat, the wretched man gurgled forth, "Mercy! Mercy! G.o.d's name, mercy!"

Piteous abject terror showed in his staring eyes. His voice was to Kalmar like blood to a tiger.

"Mercy!" he hissed, thrusting his face still nearer, his smile now all gone. "Mercy? G.o.d's name! Hear him! I, too, cried for mercy for father, brother, wife, but found none. Now though G.o.d Himself should plead, you will have only such mercy from me." He seemed to lose hold of himself. His breath came in thick sharp sobs, foam fell from his lips. "Ha," he gasped. "I cannot wait even to pick your eyes. There is some one at the door. I must drink your heart's blood now! Now! A-h-h-h!" His voice rose in a wild cry, weird and terrible. He raised his knife high, but as it fell the Dalmatian, who had been amusing himself battering the Polak about during these moments, suddenly heaved the little man at Kalmar, and knocked him into the corner. The knife fell, buried not in the heart of Rosenblatt, but in the Polak's neck.

There was no time to strike again. There was a loud battering, then a crash as the door was kicked open.

"h.e.l.lo! What is all this row here?"

It was Sergeant Cameron, pus.h.i.+ng his big body through the crowd as a man bursts through a thicket. An awed silence had fallen upon all, arrested, sobered by that weird cry. Some of them knew that cry of old. They had heard it in the Old Land in circ.u.mstances of heart-chilling terror, but never in this land till this moment.

"What is all this?" cried the Sergeant again. His glance swept the room and rested upon the huddled heap of men in the furthest corner.

He seized the topmost and hauled him roughly from the heap.

"h.e.l.lo! What's this? Why, G.o.d bless my soul! The man is dying!"

From a wound in the neck the blood was still spouting. Quickly the Sergeant was on his knees beside the wounded man, his thumb pressed hard upon the gaping wound. But still the blood continued to bubble up and squirt from under his thumb. All around, the earthen floor was muddy with blood.

"Run, some of you," commanded the Sergeant, "and hurry up that Dr. Wright, Main Street, two corners down!"

Jacob Wa.s.syl, who had come in from the room above, understood, and sent a man off with all speed.

"Good Lord! What a pig sticking!" said the Sergeant. "There is a barrel of blood around here. And here is another man! Here you!"

addressing Jacob, "put your thumb here and press so. It is not much good, but we cannot do anything else just now." The Sergeant straightened himself up. Evidently this was no ordinary "sc.r.a.p."

"Let no man leave this room," he cried aloud. "Tell them," he said, addressing Jacob, "you speak English; and two of you, you and you, stand by the door and let no man out except as I give the word."

The two men took their places.

"Now then, let us see what else there is here. Do you know these men?" he enquired of Jacob.

"Dis man," replied Jacob, "I not know. Him Polak man."

The men standing about began to jabber.

"What do they say?"

"Him Polak. Kravicz his name. He no bad man. He fight quick, but not a bad man."

"Well, he won't fight much more, I am thinking," replied the Sergeant.

A second man lay on his back in a pool of blood, insensible. His face showed ghastly beneath its horrible smear of blood and filth.

"Bring me that lantern," commanded the Sergeant.

"My G.o.d!" cried Jacob, "it is Rosenblatt!"

"Rosenblatt? Who is he?"

"De man dat live here, dis house. He run store. Lots mon'.

My G.o.d! He dead!"

"Looks like it," said the Sergeant, opening his coat. "He's got a bad hole in him here," he continued, pointing to a wound in the chest. "Looks deep, and he is bleeding, too."

There was a knocking at the door.

"Let him in," cried the Sergeant, "it is the doctor. h.e.l.lo, Doctor!

Here is something for you all right."

The doctor, a tall, athletic young fellow with a keen, intellectual face, pushed his way through the crowd to the corner and dropped on his knees beside the Polak.

"Why, the man is dead!" said the doctor, putting his hand over the Polak's heart.

Even as he spoke, a shudder pa.s.sed through the man's frame, and he lay still. The doctor examined the hole in his neck.

"Yes, he's dead, sure enough. The jugular vein is severed."

"Well, here is another, Doctor, who will be dead in a few minutes, if I am not mistaken," said the Sergeant.

"Let me see," said the doctor, turning to Rosenblatt. "Heavens above!" he cried, as his knees sank in the b.l.o.o.d.y mud, "it's blood!"

He pa.s.sed round the other side of the unconscious man, got out his syringe and gave him a hypodermic. In a few minutes Rosenblatt showed signs of life. He began to breathe heavily, then to cough and spit mouthfuls of blood.

"Ha, lung, I guess," said the doctor, examining a small clean wound high up in the left breast. "Better send for an ambulance, Sergeant, and hurry them up. The sooner we get him to the hospital, the better.