"My dear creature," said John Bulmer, "I am now doubly persuaded that God
entirely omitted what we term a sense of honor when He created the woman. I
mean to kill this rapscallion, but I mean to kill him fairly." He unbolted
the trap-door and immediately Cazaio stood upon the roof, his sword drawn.
Achille Cazaio stared at the tranquil woman, and now his countenance
was less that of a satyr than of a demon. "At four in the morning!
I congratulate you, Monsieur Bulmaire," he said,--"Oh, decidedly, I
congratulate you."
"Thank you," said John Bulmer, sword in hand; "yes, we were married
yesterday."
Cazaio drew a pistol from his girdle and fired full in John Bulmer's face;
but the latter had fallen upon one knee, and the ball sped harmlessly above
him.
"You are very careless with fire-arms," John Bulmer lamented, "Really,
friend Achille, if you are not more circumspect you will presently injure
somebody, and will forever afterward be consumed with unavailing regret and
compunctions. Now let us get down to our affair."
They crossed blades in the moonlight, Cazaio was in a disastrous condition;
John Bulmer's tolerant acceptance of any meanness that a Cazaio might
attempt, the vital shame of this new and baser failure before Claire's very
eyes, had made of Cazaio a crazed beast. He slobbered little flecks of
foam, clinging like hoar-frost to the tangled beard, and he breathed with
shuddering inhalations, like a man in agony, the while that he charged
with redoubling thrusts. The Englishman appeared to be enjoying himself,
discreetly; he chuckled as the other, cursing, shifted from tierce to
quart, and he met the assault with a nice inevitableness. In all, each
movement had the comely precision of finely adjusted clockwork, though
at times John Bulmer's face showed a spurt of amusement roused by the
brigand's extravagancy of gesture and Cazaio's contortions as he strove to
pass the line of steel that flickered cannily between his sword and John
Bulmer's portly bosom.
Then John Bulmer, too, attacked. "For Guiton!" said he, as his point
slipped into Cazaio's breast. John Bulmer recoiled and lodged another
thrust in the brigand's throat. "For attempting to assassinate me!" His
foot stamped as his sword ran deep into Cazaio's belly. "For insulting my
wife by thinking of her obscenely! You are a dead man, friend Achille."
Cazaio had dropped his sword, reeling as if drunken against the western
battlement. "My comfort," he said, hoarsely, while one hand tore at his
jetting throat--"my comfort is that I could not perish slain by a braver
enemy." He moaned and stumbled backward. Momentarily his knees gripped the
low embrasure. Then his feet flipped upward, convulsively, so that John
Bulmer saw the man's spurs glitter and twitch in the moonlight, and John
Bulmer heard a snapping and crackling and swishing among the poplars, and
heard the heavy, unvibrant thud of Cazaio's body upon the turf.
"May he find more mercy than he has merited," said John Bulmer, "for the
man had excellent traits. Yes, in him the making of a very good swordsman
was spoiled by that abominable Boisrobert."