"LIAR, I WILL KILL YOU!"
He had been left behind--and I was here! He whose escape had been
arranged for was still a prisoner--I, whose doom had been fixed, was
free.
What did it mean? What mystery had taken place?
One glance toward the _fonda_ fifty yards away was sufficient to show
that mystery there was--as unintelligible to another as to Juana. And
more than mystery!--that my presence here was as hateful as
unexpected, to one person at least. To Morales, the Alcáide!
For even as my love recovered sufficiently to be able to stand without
my assistance, though still leaning heavily upon me, I--looking toward
that _fonda_--saw Morales issuing rapidly from it, his sword carried
in his left hand, his right hand plucking the blade from the scabbard.
And--more ominous still of what his intentions were, as well as of his
fury!--as he ran toward us he flung the now empty sheath away from him
and rushed forward, the bare blade gleaming.
Then as he reached the spot where we both stood together, the mute
behind us--while, even as I too plucked the sword the poor creature
had furnished me with from its scabbard and stood upon my guard, I
saw that his stolid face expressed not only fear but something
else--astonishment!--Morales shouted, his words tumbling pell mell
over each other so much as to be difficult of understanding.
"Wretches! Traitor! Traitress! 'Tis thus I am deceived--hoodwinked!
Tricked and ruined so that your lover may be restored to your false
arms. So be it--thus, also, I avenge myself," and--horror!--he made a
pass at Juana as she stood by my side. He was a Spaniard--and his love
had turned to hate and gall!
Yet ere the shriek she uttered had ceased to ring on the wintry
morning air, the deadly thrust that was aimed full at her breast was
parried by my own blade; putting her behind me with my left hand, I
struck full at him, resolved that ere another five minutes were over
his own life should pay for that craven attempt; struck full at his
own breast, missing it only by an inch, yet driving him back from me.
Back, step by step, yet knowing even as I did so that' it was no odds
on me in this encounter, that here was a swordsman who would dispute
every thrust of mine; that it would be lucky if his long blade did not
thread my ribs ere my own weapon found his heart.
It behooved me to be careful, I knew. Already, in the first moment, he
had settled down to fighting carefully and cautiously; already one
devilish Italian thrust was given--he must have crossed the Alps, I
thought, to learn it!--that almost took me unawares; that, had my
parry not been quick, would have brought his quillon hurtling at my
breast, with the blade through me. Yet, it had failed! and with the
failure the chance was gone.
"I know your thrust," I whispered, maybe hissed, at him; "'twill serve
no more."
But even as I said these words it came to me that I should not win
this fight, that he was the better man--my master--at the game--that I
was lost. And as I thought this I saw--while we shifted ground a
little on the sodden snow--the mute standing gazing earnestly, almost
fascinated, upon us; I saw some people at the door of the _fonda_--a
man and a woman--regarding us with horror-stricken glances--I saw
Juana on her knees, perhaps praying! It might be so, since her head
was buried in her hands!
And if he won, if he slew me, even wounded and disabled me, she was
lost, too; with me out of the way, with her father dead or still a
prisoner, nothing could save her. Her last hope would be gone.
That spurred me, egged me on, put a fierce and fresh determination in
my heart, since I had not lost my courage, but only my confidence.
That, and one other thing; for I saw upon the melting snow beneath our
feet, even as we trod it into water, a tinge of crimson; I saw a few
drops lie spotting it--and I knew that that blood was not mine.
Therefore, I had touched him, had only missed his life by a hair's
breadth; next time it might not be drops--might be the heart's blood
of him who had sought that of my loved one!
Still, I could not do it, could not thrust through and through him.
Every drive, every assault, was parried easily. Once, when I lunged so
near him that I heard his silk waistcoat rip, he laughed a low,
mocking laugh as he thrust my blade aside with a turn of his iron
wrist; I could not even, as I tried, take him in the sword arm and so
disable him.
Also, I knew what was in his mind, specially since, for some few
moments, he had ceased to thrust back at me. He was bent on tiring me
out. Then--then--his opportunity would have come, would be at hand.
"Disable him! Disable him!" Why did those words haunt my brain, ring
through it again and again; seem to deaden even the scraping hiss of
steel against steel. "Disable him!" What memory was arising in that
brain of some one, something, long forgotten? A second later, even as
I felt my point bring pressed lower and lower by his own blade, knew a
lunge was coming--parried it as it came--safely once more, thank
God!--I remembered, knew what that memory meant.
Recalled a little, hunchbacked Italian _escrimeur_ who used to haunt a
fence school at the back of the Exchange in the Strand; a man whose
knowledge of attack was poor in the extreme, yet who could earn a
beggar's wage by teaching some marvellous methods of disarming an
adversary. And I had flung him a crown more than once to be taught his
tricks!
Now those crowns should bear interest!
I changed my tactics, lunged no more; our blades became silent; they
ceased to hiss like drops of water falling on live coals or hot iron;
almost they lay motionless together, mine over his, yet I feeling
through blade and hilt the strength of that black, hairy wrist which
held the other weapon. Also, I think he felt the strength of mine;
once his eye shifted, though had the moment been any other the shift
would have been unnoticeable.
That was my time! Swift as lightning, I, remembering the dwarf's
lessons of long ago--why did I remember also the little sniggering
chuckle he used to utter as he taught them?--drew back my sword an
inch, then thrust, then back again with a sharp wrench, and, lo!
Morales' sword was flying through the air three feet above his
head--he was weaponless! My own was drawn back a second later, another
moment I should have avenged his assassin's thrust at Juana--yet I
could not do it. For he, recognising he was doomed, stood there before
me, his arms folded over his breast, his eyes confronting mine.
"Curse you!" he said, "you have won. Well--kill me. At once."
No need for me to say that could not be. In the moment that I twisted
his weapon out of his wrist I had meant to slay him, had drawn back my
own weapon to thrust it through chest and lungs and back, and stretch
him dead at my feet--yet now I spared him.
Villain as he was--scoundrel who would traffic with a broken-hearted
woman for her honour and her soul as a set-off against her father's
safety, and, in doing so, also betray the country he served--I could
not slay a defenceless man.
His sword had fallen at my feet; one of them was upon it. I motioned
to him now to return to the _fonda_--to begone.
"You have missed your quarry," I said; "'twill never fall to your lure
again. Away!"
Yet, still standing there before us--for now Juana had once more flown
to my side, and was sobbing bitterly, her wild, passionate words
expressing partly her thanks to God for my double safety, and partly
her bewailings that her father had gone to his fate--he had something
to say, could not depart without a malediction.
"Curse you both!" he exclaimed once more. "Curse you! Had I known of
your trick you should all have burnt and grilled on the _braséro_ ere
this--ay, even you, wanton!--ere I had let you fool me so."
Then he turned away as though to go back to the _fonda_, yet returned
again, and, striding back to where the mute stood motionless, his
expression one of absolute vacancy--as though, in truth, he was only
now become dumb from utter surprise--he struck at him full in the face
with his clenched fist.
"Dolt, idiot, hound!" he said. "Was it to aid in such treachery
against me as this that I saved you from the Inquisition? God! that I
had left them to take your useless life! Dumb fool!"
I, standing there, with Juana still clinging to my neck, as she had
done since the duel was over, saw the man stagger back and wipe the
blood from his lips; saw, too, his hands clench firmly; saw him take
one step forward, as though he meant to throw himself upon Morales;
then stop suddenly, and do nothing. Perhaps even now, after this foul
blow, he remembered that he had been saved from death once by him who
struck that blow.
But a moment later he approached the Alcáide, though now humbly, and
like a beaten slave who sues for pardon, and entreats that no further
punishment shall be dealt out to him, and, an instant after, began,
with fingers and hands and many strange motions, to tell his master
something--something in a dumb language that was, still, not the deaf
and dumb language in common use, and which I myself chanced to know,
yet one that none could doubt both of these men were in the habit of
conversing in.
He was telling some strange tale, I saw and understood by one glance
at my late opponent's face; neither could any doubt that who gazed
upon it!
At first that face expressed amazement, incredulity--all the emotions
that are to be observed on the countenance of one who listens to some
story which he either cannot believe, or thinks issues, at best, from
a maniac. Yet gradually, too, there came over the face of Morales
another look--the look of one who does believe at last, in spite of
himself; also there dawned on it a hideous, gloating expression, such
as might befit a fiend who listens to the tortured cries of a victim.
What did it mean? What tale was that stricken creature telling him by
those symbols, which none but he understood? What? What?
A moment later we knew--if Morales did not lie to us.
The mute had ceased his narrative, his hands made no further signs,
and, slowly, he stepped back again to where the horses we had
travelled on stood together, the reins of one tied to the other--and
Morales turned to us, his features still convulsed with that horrible
expression of gloating.
"I have wronged you," he said, raising his forefinger and pointing it
at Juana, who shuddered and clasped me closer even as he did so; "and
you," glancing at me. "The treachery was not yours, but another's;
unless--unless"--and he paused as though seeking for words--"unless it
should be termed otherwise. Say, not treachery, but--sublime
sacrifice."
"What!" from both her lips and mine. "What!"
"Your father," he said, "had his chance"--and again that forefinger
was pointed at her--"this poor fool, my servant, went to set him free;
the horse was waiting for him--only, instead, it has borne _you_ to
safety"--and now he glanced at me--"also there was his sword for
him--that by your side."
"My God! My God!" I heard Juana whisper on my breast.
"Only he--this buccaneer--would not accept it, not take it. He,
stained deep with crime as he was, his name an accursed one through
all the Indies--men spit upon the ground there, they say, with
loathing when they hear it mentioned, even now--could bear all things
but one. Shall I tell you what that one thing is?" and he glanced
again at Juana, a very hell of hate in his look.
But she could only moan upon my bosom and murmur: "My father! Oh, my
father!"
"He could not bear," Morales went on, "that his child should be what
he knew she had become by now--my friend----"
"Liar!" I cried. "I will kill you for this."
"Could not bear that she should bring deeper disgrace than even he had
done upon your tainted names. Therefore he refused to come; therefore
he preferred the flames to which he has gone"--a wild, piercing scream
broke from Juana as he said those words--"and--so--so--that there
should be nothing rise up to prevent him from going to his death, so
that he should put away from himself all chance of salvation from that
death and earn his oblivion from disgrace, he persuaded this fool that
a mistake had been made--that 'twas you, not he, who was to be saved,
allowed to escape."
"You lie," I said again. "You lie. Some part of this story is true,
some false, Gramont never believed that she would give herself to you;
knew that she meant to slay herself the instant she was assured of his
safety. Spanish dog, you lie, and I will have your life for it."
"It is true," he said hoarsely, "as true as that an hour after you
left Lugo he was led out and burnt at the _braséro_--the _braséro_
that was prepared for you. Now," and once more he addressed Juana,
"you have your lover back again--be happy in the possession; in the
knowledge that his life is saved by the loss of your father's. Be
happy in that."