Calot, I spurn you with my foot," and with the words he turned to
kick Xodar.
My blood was up. For minutes it had been boiling at the cowardly
treatment they had been according this once powerful comrade because
he had fallen from the favour of Issus. I had no love for Xodar,
but I cannot stand the sight of cowardly injustice and persecution
without seeing red as through a haze of bloody mist, and doing
things on the impulse of the moment that I presume I never should
do after mature deliberation.
I was standing close beside Xodar as Thurid swung his foot for the
cowardly kick. The degraded Dator stood erect and motionless as a
carven image. He was prepared to take whatever his former comrades
had to offer in the way of insults and reproaches, and take them
in manly silence and stoicism.
But as Thurid's foot swung so did mine, and I caught him a painful
blow upon the shin bone that saved Xodar from this added ignominy.
For a moment there was tense silence, then Thurid, with a roar
of rage sprang for my throat; just as Xodar had upon the deck of
the cruiser. The results were identical. I ducked beneath his
outstretched arms, and as he lunged past me planted a terrific
right on the side of his jaw.
The big fellow spun around like a top, his knees gave beneath him
and he crumpled to the ground at my feet.
The blacks gazed in astonishment, first at the still form of the
proud Dator lying there in the ruby dust of the pathway, then at
me as though they could not believe that such a thing could be.
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