The nigger must be disabled, if I could manage such a nicety; if not, the devil take his own.
Well, I was not one tick too soon for him.

My pistol was not cocked before the crash came that I was counting on, and with it a shower of small glass driving across the six-foot sill and tinkling on the flags.
Next came a black and bloody face, at which I could not fire.

I had to wait till I saw his legs, when I promptly shattered one of them at disgracefully short range.

The report was as deafening as one upon the stage; the hall filled with white smoke, and remained hideous with the bellowing of my victim.

I searched him without a qualm, but threats of annihilation instead, and found him unarmed but for that very knife which Rattray had induced me to hand over to him in town.