text:  Again the murderous weapon was uplifted--I vainly endeavoured to fling my opponent and myself against the striker--I heard a scream and saw the poor servant girl rush forward with a sort of desperate instinct armed with no other weapon than the candlestick--when a report that sounded like a volley shook the whole passage--a bright flash threw out the whole scene vividly for a moment--the robber with his back to me with his weapon poised and the blackened face of the other glaring savagely into my own--then followed total darkness--the ringing of the iron-bar upon the bricks--a stifled groan--and then a silence more horrible than all