THE DUEL
Cleggett took Wilton Barnstable by the sleeve and drew him towards
Loge, who, still seated on the deck with his long legs stretched out in
front of him, was now yawning with a cynical affectation of boredom.
"I wish you to act as my second in this affair," said Cleggett to the
detective, "and I suggest that either Mr. Ward or Mr. Bard perform a
like office for Mr. Black."
Loge shrugged his shoulders, and said with a sneer:
"A second, eh? We seem to be doing a great deal of arranging for a
very small amount of fighting."
"I suggest," said Wilton Barnstable, "that a night's rest would be
quite in order for both principals."
Loge broke in quickly, with studied insolence: "I object to the delay.
Mr. Cleggett might find some excuse for changing his mind overnight.
Let us, if you please, begin at once."
"It was not I who suggested the delay," said Cleggett, haughtily.
"Then give us the pistols," cried Loge, with a sudden, grim ferocity in
his voice, "and let's make an end of it!"
"We fight with swords," said Cleggett. "I am the challenged party."
"Ho! Swords!" cried Loge, with a harsh, jarring laugh. "A bout with
the rapiers, man to man, eh? Come, this is better and better! I may
go to the chair, but first I will spit you like a squab on a skewer, my
little nut!" And then he said again, with a shout of gusty mirth, and
a clanking of his manacles: "Swords, eh? By God! The little man says
SWORDS!"
Wilton Barnstable drew Cleggett to one side.
"Name pistols," he said. "For God's sake, Cleggett, name pistols! If
I had had any idea that you were going to demand rapiers I should have
warned you before."
Cleggett was amused at the great detective's anxiety. "It appears that
the fellow handles the rapier pretty well, eh?" he said easily.
"Cleggett----" began Barnstable. And then he paused and groaned and
mopped his brow. Presently he controlled his agitation and continued.
"Cleggett," he said, "the man is an expert swordsman. I have been on
his trail; I know his life for years past. He was once a maitre
d'armes. He gave lessons in the art."
"Yes?" said Cleggett, laughing and flexing his wrist. "I am glad to
hear that! It will be really interesting then."
"Cleggett," said Barnstable, "I beg of you--name pistols. This is the
man who invented that diabolical thrust with which Georges Clemenceau
laid low so many of his political opponents. If you must go on with
this mad duel, name pistols!"
"Barnstable," said Cleggett, "I know what I am about, believe me. Your
anxiety does me little honor, but I am willing to suppose that you are
not deliberately insulting, and I pass it over. I intend to kill this
man. It is a duty which I owe to society. And as for the
rapier--believe me, Barnstable, I am no novice. And my blood tingles
and my soul aches with the desire to expunge that man from life with my
own hand. Come, we have talked enough. There is a case of swords in
the cabin. Will you do me the favor to bring them on deck?"
Loge's irons were unlocked. He rose to his feet and stretched himself.
He removed his coat and waistcoat. Then he took off his shirt,
revealing the fact that he wore next his skin a long-sleeved undershirt
of red flannel.
Cleggett began to imitate him. But as the commander of the Jasper B.
began to pull his shirt over his head he heard a little scream.
Everyone turned in the direction from which it had emanated. They
beheld Miss Genevieve Pringle perched upon the top of the cabin,
whither she had mounted by means of a short ladder. This lady, perhaps
not quite aware of the possibly sanguinary character of the spectacle
she was about to witness, had, nevertheless, sensed the fact that a
spectacle was toward. Miss Pringle had with her a handsome lorgnette.
"Madam," said Cleggett, hastily pulling his shirt back on again and
approaching the cabin, "did you cry out?"
"Mr.--er--Cleggett," said Miss Pringle, pursing her lips, "if you will
kindly hold the ladder for me I think I will descend and retire at once
to the cabin."
"As you wish," said Cleggett politely, complying with her wish, but at
a loss to comprehend her.
"I beg you to believe, Mr. Cleggett," said Miss Pringle, averting her
face and flushing painfully, while she turned the lorgnette about and
about with embarrassed fingers, "I beg you to believe that in electing
to witness this spectacle I had no idea of its exceedingly informal
nature."
With these words she passed into the cabin, with the air of one who has
sustained a mortal insult.
"Ef you was to ask me what she's tryin' to get at," piped up Cap'n
Abernethy, "I'd say it's her belief that it ain't proper for gents to
sword each other with their shirts off. She's shocked, Miss Pringle
is."
"In great and crucial moments," said Cleggett soberly, pulling off his
shirt again and picking up a sword, "we may dispense with the minor
conventions without apology."
Loge chose a weapon with the extreme of care and particularity, trying
the hang and balance of several of them. He looked well to the weight,
bent the blade in his hands to test the spring and temper, tried the
point upon his thumb. He handled the rapier as if he had found an old
friend again after a long absence; he looked around upon his enemies
with a sort of ferocious, bantering gayety.
"And now," said Loge, "if this is to be a duel indeed, Mr. Cleggett and
I will need plenty of room, I suggest that the rest of you retire to
the bulwarks and give us the deck to ourselves."
"For my part," said Cleggett, "I order it."
"And," said Wilton Barnstable, drawing his pistol, "Mr. Black will
please note that while I am standing by the bulwarks I shall be
watching indeed. Should he make an attempt to escape from the vessel I
shall riddle him with bullets."
"Come, come," said Loge, "all this conversation is a waste of time!"
"That is my opinion also," said Cleggett.
They saluted formally, and engaged their blades.
With Cleggett, swordsmanship was both a science and an art. And
something more. It was also a passion. A good swordsman can be made;
a superior swordsman may be born; the real masters are both born and
made. It was so with Cleggett. His interest in fencing had been keen
from his early boyhood. In his teens he had acquired unusual practical
skill without great theoretical knowledge. Then he had recognized the
art for what it is, the most beautiful game on earth, and had made a
profound and thorough study of it; it appealed to his imagination.
He became, in a way, the poet of the foil.
Cleggett seldom fenced publicly, and then only under an assumed name;
he abhorred publicity. But there was not a teacher in New York City
who did not know him for a master. They brought him their half worked
out visions of new combinations, new thrusts; he perfected them, and
simplified, or elaborated, and gave back the finished product.
They were the workmen, the craftsmen, the men of talent; he was the
originator, the genius.
And he was especially lucky in not having been tied down, in his
younger years, to one national tradition of the art. The limitations
of the French, the Spanish, the Italian, or the Austrian schools had
not enslaved him in youth and hampered the free development of his
individuality. He had studied them all; he chose from them all their
superiorities; their excellences he blended into a system of his own.
It might be called the Cleggett System.
The Frenchman is an intellectual swordsman; the basis of his art is a
thorough knowledge of its mathematics. Upon this foundation he
superimposes a structure of audacity. But he often falls into one
error or another, for all his mental brilliancy. He may become rigidly
formal in his practice, or, in a revolt from his own formalism, be
seduced into a display of showy, sensational tricks that are all very
well in the studio but dangerous to their practitioner on the actual
dueling ground.
The Italian, looser, freer, less formal, more individual in his style,
springing from a line of forbears who have preferred the thrust to the
cut, the point to the edge, for centuries, is a more instinctive and
less intellectual swordsman than the Frenchman. It is in his blood; he
uses his rapier with a wild and angry grace that is feline.
The Frenchman, even when he is thoroughly serious in his desire to
slay, loves a duel for its own sake; he is never free from the thought
of the picture he is making; the art, the science, the practical
cleverness, appeal to him independently of the bloodshed.
The Italian thinks of but one thing; to kill. He will take a severe
wound to give a fatal one. The French are the best fencers in the
world; the Italians the deadliest duelists.
Cleggett, as has been said, knew all the schools without being the
slave of any of them.
He brought his sword en tierce; Loge's blade met his with strength and
delicacy. The strength Cleggett was prepared for. The delicacy
surprised him. But he was too much the master, too confident of his
own powers, to trifle. He delivered one of his favorite thrusts; it
was a stroke of his own invention; three times out of five, in years
past, it had carried home the button of his foil to his opponent's
jacket. It was executed with the directness and rapidity of a flash of
lightning.
But Loge parried it with a neatness which made Cleggett open his eyes,
replying with a counter so shrewd and close, and of such a darting
ferocity, that Cleggett, although he met it faultlessly, nevertheless
gave back a step.
"Ah," cried Loge, showing his yellow teeth in a grin, "so the little
man knows that thrust!"
"I invented it," said Cleggett.
With the word he pressed forward and, making a swift and dazzling
feint, followed it with two brilliant thrusts, either of which would
have meant the death of a tyro. The first one Loge parried; the second
touched him; but it gave him nothing more than a scratch.
Nevertheless, the smile faded from Loge's face; he gave ground in his
turn before this rapid vigor of attack; he measured Cleggett with a new
glance.
"You are touched, I think," said Cleggett, meditating a fresh
combination, "and I am glad to see you drop that ugly pretense at a
grin. You have no idea how the sight of those yellow teeth of yours,
which you were evidently never taught to brush when you were a little
boy, offends a person of any refinement."
Loge's answer was a sudden attempt to twist his blade around
Cleggett's; followed by a direct thrust, as quick as light, which
grazed Cleggett's shoulder; a little smudge of blood appeared on his
undershirt.
"Take care, take care, Cleggett!" warned Wilton Barnstable, from his
post by the starboard bulwark.
"Make yourself easy," said Cleggett, parrying a counter en carte, "I am
only getting warm."
And both of them, stung by the slight scratches which they had
received, settled to the business with an intent and silent deadliness
of purpose.
To all appearances Loge had an immense advantage over Cleggett; his
legs were a good two inches longer; so were his arms. And he knew how
to make these peculiarities count. He fought for a while with a calm
and steady precision that repeatedly baffled the calculated impetuosity
of Cleggett's attack. But the air of bantering certainty with which he
had begun the duel had left him. He no longer wasted his breath on
repartee; no doubt he was surprised to find Cleggett's strength so
nearly equal to his own, as Cleggett had been astonished to find in
Loge so much finesse. But with a second slight wound Loge began to give
ground.
With Cleggett a bout with the foils had always been a duel. It has
been indicated, we believe, that he was of a romantic disposition and
much given to daydreaming; his imagination had thus made every set-to
in the fencing room a veritable mortal combat to him. Therefore, this
was not his first duel; he had fought hundreds of them. And he fought
always on a settled plan, adapting it, of course, to the idiosyncrasies
of his adversary. It was his custom to vary the system of his attack
frequently in the most disconcerting manner, at the same time steadily
increasing the pace at which he fought. And when Loge began to give
ground and breathe a little harder, Cleggett, far from taking advantage
of his opponent's growing distress to rest himself, as a less
distinguished swordsman might have done, redoubled the vigor of his
assault. Cleggett knew that sooner or later a winded man makes a
fault. The lungs labor and fail to give the blood all the oxygen it
needs. The circulation suffers. Nerves and muscles are no longer the
perfect servants of the brain; for a fraction of a second the sword
deviates from the proper line.
It was for this that Cleggett waited, pressing Loge closer and closer,
alert for the instant when Loge would fence wide; waxing as the other
waned; menacing eyes, throat, and heart with a point that leaped and
dazzled; and at the same time inclosing himself within a rampart of
steel which Loge found it more and more hopeless to attempt to
penetrate. It was as if Cleggett's blade were an extension of his will;
he and his sword were not two things, but one. The metal in his hand
was no longer merely a whip of steel; it was a thing that lived with
his own life. His pulse beat in it. It was a part of him. His
nervous force permeated it and animated it; it was his thought turned
to tempered metal, and it was with the rapidity, directness and
subtlety of thought that his sword responded to his mind.
"Come!" said Cleggett, as Loge broke ground, scarcely aware that he
spoke aloud. "At this rate we shall be at home thrusts soon!"
Loge must have thought so too; a shade passed over his face, his upper
lip lifted haggardly. Perhaps even that iron nature was beginning to
feel at last something of the dull sickness which is the fear of death.
He retreated continually, and Cleggett was smitten with the fancy to
force him backward and nail him, with a final thrust, to the stump of
the foremast, which had been broken off some eight feet above the deck.
But Loge, gathering his power, made a brilliant and desperate rally;
twice he grazed Cleggett, whose blade was too closely engaged; and then
suddenly broke ground again. This time Cleggett perceived that he had
been retreating in accordance with a preconceived program. He was
certain the man contemplated a trick, perhaps some foul stroke.
He rushed forward with a terrible thrust. Loge, whose last maneuver
had taken him within a yard of the hatchway opening into the hold,
grasped Cleggett's blade in his left hand, and at the same instant
flung his own sword, hilt first, full in Cleggett's face. As Cleggett,
struck in the mouth with the pommel, staggered back, Loge plunged feet
foremost into the hold. It was too unexpected, and too quickly done,
for a shot from Barnstable or any of Cleggett's men.
Cleggett, with the blood streaming from his mouth, recovered himself
and leaped through the aperture in the deck. He landed upon his feet
with a jar, and, shortening his sword in his hand, stared about him in
the gloom.
He saw no one.
An instant later Wilton Barnstable and Cap'n Abernethy were beside him.
"Gone!" said Cleggett simply.
Barnstable drew from his pocket a small electric lantern and swept the
beam in a circle about the hold. Again and again he raked the darkness
until the finger of light had rested upon every foot of the interior.
But Loge had vanished as completely as a snowflake that falls into a
tub of water.