the
garotte of Rupert, while Basil was striving to master his mighty hands.
Rupert and Basil were both particularly strong, but so was Mr Burrows;
how strong, we knew a second afterwards. His head was held back by
Rupert's arm, but a convulsive heave went over his whole frame. An
instant after his head plunged forward like a bull's, and Rupert Grant
was slung head over heels, a catherine wheel of legs, on the floor in
front of him. Simultaneously the bull's head butted Basil in the chest,
bringing him also to the ground with a crash, and the monster, with a
Berserker roar, leaped at me and knocked me into the corner of the
room, smashing the waste-paper basket. The bewildered Greenwood sprang
furiously to his feet. Basil did the same. But they had the best of it
now.

Greenwood dashed to the bell and pulled it violently, sending peals
through the great house. Before I could get panting to my feet, and
before Rupert, who had been literally stunned for a few moments,
could even lift his head from the floor, two footmen were in the room.
Defeated even when we were in a majority, we were now outnumbered.
Greenwood and one of the footmen flung themselves upon me, crushing me
back into the corner upon the wreck of the paper basket. The other two
flew at Basil, and pinned him against the wall. Rupert lifted himself on
his elbow, but he was still dazed.

In the strained silence of our helplessness I heard the voice of Basil
come with a loud incongruous cheerfulness.

"Now this," he said, "is what I call enjoying oneself."

I caught a glimpse of his face, flushed and forced against the bookcase,
from between the swaying limbs of my captors and his. To my astonishment
his eyes were really brilliant with pleasure, like those of a child
heated by a favourite game.

I made several apoplectic efforts to rise, but the servant was on top of
me so heavily that Greenwood could afford to leave me to him. He turned
quickly to come to reinforce the two who were mastering Basil. The
latter's head was already sinking lower and lower, like a leaking ship,
as his enemies pressed him down. He flung up one hand just as I thought
him falling and hung on to a huge tome in the bookcase, a volume, I
afterwards discovered, of St Chrysostom's theology. Just as Greenwood
bounded across the room towards the group, Basil plucked the ponderous
tome bodily out of the shelf, swung it, and sent it spinning through the
air, so that it struck Greenwood f