![]() He didn't need a mirror to know he was being worked over fearfully, his face distorted in grotesque mutilation, both eyes rapidly closing, lips ballooned in a purplish mass of torn meat, one nostril of his nose split open. As if in slow motion, Pitt sunk to his knees and slowly slumped forward onto his face, so badly injured that blood and vomit mingled freely in his mouth and flowed onto the mat in an ever-widening pool. A quick combination of sledgehammer blows to the head that never seemed to end, followed by a front kick to the exposed rib area, and Pitt felt rather than heard one of his ribs snap. Rondheim lost no time in working on him again. The legend of which I speak,' he said, slowly and distinctly, 'is that of the vampir!' And these country folk being so superstitious and all - Dragosani couldn't resist it. In another room, an old clock ticked throatily. From the kitchen came the clinking of dishes and soft, muted voices. Outside, the sun had gone down and dusk lay everywhere like a mantle of blue smoke. The wine was very heady and had robbed Dragosani of most of his natural caution. Let me go, Ursula, I said.Let me die with honor, will you do me that courtesy! I struggled.Let me free, to die in my own way, will you do that much?Īnd the flag went forward across the crest and behind it came a wave of men who hurried towards the walls. Nice gentleman from the United States leased him this property. When the archaeological project began, my father came to build this inn. And then he would only have to turn his head and that would be the end: even in that darkness, Mallory realised, there could be no mistaking the bulk of his silhouette against the sharp line of the edge of the cliff.Īh, well, in that case, and Fandarel raised a thick swollen hand in agreement. At night, Mallory knew, side vision is even more acute than direct, and the guard might catch a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. But he would have to slide down slowly, an inch at a time. To go up on to the top of the cliff would be suicidal: ten to one the guard would hear him scrambling over the edge and shoot him out of hand: and if he did get up he had neither the weapons nor, after that exhausting climb, the strength to tackle an armed, fresh man. But now the first Shock was over and Mallory's mind was working again. For the first two or three seconds Mallory had lain rigid and unmoving, temporarily paralysed in mind and body: already the guard had advanced four or five steps, carbine held in readiness before him, head turned sideways as he listened into the high, thin whine of the wind and the deep and distant booming of the surf below, trying to isolate the sound that had aroused his suspicions.
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