Clinging desperately to the fellow she surged backward with all her
weight and strength with the result that she overbalanced him and
sent him sprawling to the pavement upon his back. In his efforts
to save himself he relaxed his grasp upon the grip of his saber
which had no sooner fallen to the ground than it was seized upon by
the girl. Standing erect beside the prostrate form of the English
officer Bertha Kircher, the razor-edged weapon grasped firmly in
her hand, faced their captors.
She was a brave figure; even her soiled and torn riding togs and
disheveled hair detracted nothing from her appearance. The creature
she had felled scrambled quickly to his feet and in the instant
his whole demeanor changed. From demoniacal rage he became suddenly
convulsed with hysterical laughter although it was a question in
the girl's mind as to which was the more terrifying. His companions
stood looking on with vacuous grins upon their countenances, while
he from whom the girl had wrested the weapon leaped up and down
shrieking with laughter. If Bertha Kircher had needed further
evidence to assure her that they were in the hands of a mentally
deranged people the man's present actions would have been sufficient
to convince her. The sudden uncontrolled rage and now the equally
uncontrolled and mirthless laughter but emphasized the facial
attributes of idiocy.
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