In the gloom, his hovering about the involved pair would have led an opera-goer to have seen in him the demon who thus actively presides at the fatal duel of Faust and Valentine.
But the conflict, whatever the major's wariness, could not be long protracted, for canes of this sort are tiring to the arm, unlike smallswords; he was still on the defensive when the student assailed him with a shower of blows which taxed all his skill and nerve, and the strength of the staff which he had borrowed from his foe.

Well may one suspect "the gifts of an enemy!" as the student might have cited: "_Timeo danaos_," etc.

At the very moment when the officer's head was most in peril, while he guarded it with the staff held horizontally in both hands separated widely for the critical juncture, it ominously cracked at the reception of a vigorous blow--it parted as though a steel blade had severed it, and the unresisted cane came down on his skull with crushing force.
Out of the two cavities which the broken staff now presented, rattled several gold coins.

At the sight, the old hag scrambled toward where the major had fallen senseless.

The Jew, after picking up the broken pieces of wood, would have lingered to recover those of the precious metal though at cost of a scuffle with Baboushka.