"KILL HIM DEAD, RAOUL!"
The duel was not, however, to take place in the road, since at that
moment, and when both men were preparing to draw their swords, the inn
door opened and two persons came forth--one evidently the landlord,
the other a customer to whom he was saying "Good-night." Then, as he
was about to re-enter his house, he saw under the rays of the moon
the three others in the road--the two men close together and the woman
still mounted--and came forward toward them, peering inquiringly in
front of him.
"Do messieurs and madame require any refreshment?" he asked, noticing
that two of the company were well and handsomely dressed, while the
third looked like an officer. "My inn offers good accommodation for
man and beast. Will monsieur and madame not enter?"
"Curse you, no!" De Roquemaure said; "may we not tarry a moment on the
road without being pestered thus? Begone, fellow, and leave us!"
But St. Georges interposed, saying:
"On the contrary, if you have a good room where we can rest awhile and
this _noble lady_," and he saw the woman's eyes sparkle--perhaps with
hate!--as he spoke, "can be fittingly received, we will enter. My
horse has cast a shoe; have you a farrier near the house who can
reshoe it? It can be done while we drink a bottle."
"I am one myself," the innkeeper replied. "Monsieur may confide his
horse to me. It is but a few moments' job, and the fire in the forge
is still alive. As for the inn and the wine--_hein!_ both are good; I
have a large room, and a bottle of Brecquiny fit for a king."
"Lead us to it," said St. Georges, "then attend to the horse;" and as
he spoke he threw the reins over the hook fixed in the tree by the
mounting-block. "Come," he said, addressing De Roquemaure and the
woman in a tone which would awaken no suspicion in the innkeeper's
mind. "Shall I assist madame to alight or will you?"
_Madame_, however, slipped off the horse by herself lightly enough,
brushing by St. Georges as she did so and whispering in his ear, "If I
could help him to kill you, I would!" and so they entered the inn,
St. Georges going last. He was a cautious man, this _chevau-leger_,
and he had seen the little stiletto--or wedding-knife, as it was
called then--in her girdle; he did not want the owner of those savage,
glistening eyes to stab him in the back. She looked capable of doing
it, he thought, judging by the sparkle they made behind the mask, and
of stabbing the innkeeper afterward to hide her guilt.
The man led them into a long, low, white-washed room at the end of a
corridor--all three noticing that it was some distance from the
inhabited part of the house, so that interruption was unlikely--a room
in which a fire burnt low.
"Bring the wine," St. Georges said to the man after he had lit the
candles in their sconces, "and be quick about it. We have no time to
tarry here."
Five minutes later the bottle of Brecquiny was on the table with three
long tapering glasses by its side; the man had made up the fire so
that it burnt brightly, and they were alone; and St. Georges, having
bidden him not interrupt them until they called, walked to the door,
locked it, and, coming back to the table, placed the key upon it.
"There will be two leave this room," he said quietly. "There is the
key for those who will require it.--Madame is comfortable, I trust,"
glancing at the woman who was seated at the table, her elbows on it,
and her face in her hands, while still the eyes glanced through the
holes of the mask at him.--"Now, Monsieur de Roquemaure, we have
sufficient space for our sword play here. I am at your service," and
he unsheathed his weapon.
The table was close to the fire, a deep chair on either side of it;
two smaller chairs, in one of which the woman sat, against the table;
beyond it a space of twenty square feet of coarse tiled floor--enough
for any pair of duellists to kill each other in!
"You force this on me," De Roquemaure said, rising and removing the
cloak he wore, and speaking between thin, almost bloodless lips;
"whether your blood or mine be shed, it is upon your own head," and he
drew his sword too.
"Not so," St. Georges replied. "Deny that you led the attack on me, on
my child and my comrade at Aignay-le-Duc; deny that it was your
servant--that it was your livery he wore--accompanied by some woman,
if not this one, who slew the Bishop of Lodeve's servant"--once more
the other started, as he had started when accused of having removed
his beard--"deny this, I say, and I break my sword across my knee--I
leave myself unarmed and defenceless, at your mercy to slay me here
for the words I have spoken."
Again from the now absolutely livid lips there came the same words, or
almost the same, he had previously uttered.
"I deny nothing--I assert nothing," and he advanced past the table to
where St. Georges stood, weapon in hand.
"So be it! Yet, for the last time, ere it is too late, answer me one
question and I will not force you to this encounter to-night. Tell me
where my child is, let me regain possession of her, and a month hence,
on my honour as a soldier, I meet you again, and, _if you desire it_,
give you satisfaction."
"I do not know where your child is," De Roquemaure muttered hoarsely.
"And for your honour as a soldier--you are a broken one. A man
dismissed the army has no honour left."
"Enough!" said St. Georges; "you knew that--knew, not that I am
broken, but that I was to be broken! Now I understand who two of my
enemies are for sure. Thus I dispose of one. _En garde!_"
"Kill him!" he heard the woman hiss again as they commenced. "Kill him
dead, Raoul!"
A moment later they were engaged, each seeking the other's life. And
each knew that nothing but his death would satisfy his adversary.
Their weapons scarcely made any noise, so quietly the one stole upon
the other, as point pressed point, and through the swords the power of
their wrists made itself felt. Once De Roquemaure lunged savagely, but
the thrust was parried and returned--dangerously so. The point of St.
Georges's weapon slit his sleeve as, like an adder's tongue, it darted
forth. Then the other drew back and fought more carefully, though the
beads of sweat stood on his white forehead now. And St. Georges,
observing them, knew that he held him safe. His nerve was gone
already--the nearness of that thrust had shattered it!
The woman, looking on--her face also as white as a corpse's--was,
perhaps, the strangest figure of the three. Her eyes shone like coals
through the mask-holes now--her figure shook all over; one hand
clutched the coarse cover on the table in a mass of folds; the other
tremblingly played with the hilt of her little dagger. And the
Brecquiny being near her, she more than once released the table cover
to pour out a glass full, drain it a draught, throw down the glass,
and glare at the combatants again.
Once, too, she shrieked aloud as a second time St. Georges's weapon,
lunging full at the other's breast, was just caught by the hilt of De
Roquemaure's sword and parried, though not without tearing from his
breast a piece of the lace from his cravat. And she struck herself on
the mouth with her clinched hand--so that her lips were bloody a
moment after--as though in rage with herself for having done aught to
alarm the house.
"You are doomed," St. Georges said to De Roquemaure in a low voice,
driving him back toward the wall, so that now the latter faced up the
room while the former's back was toward the table--"doomed! I have you
fast. Acknowledge all, or by the God above us I slay you in the next
pass!"
De Roquemaure made no answer; doggedly he fought--a horrible
spectacle. Another thrust of St. Georges's was, however, also
parried--the blade knocked nervously up by the affrighted man--bearing
a piece of flesh from De Roquemaure's cheek, from which the blood ran
down on to what was left of the cravat; the eyes glared like a hunted
animal's; the mouth was half open.
It almost required St. Georges's memory of his lost Dorine, of the
manner in which they had aimed under his arm at her--so appalled did
his adversary appear--to prevent him from sparing the craven, from
disarming him, and letting him go forth a whipped and beaten hound.
But he remembered the wrong done him, the cruel, dastardly attempts on
the child's life--and his blood was up. De Roquemaure should die. "The
wolf was face to face with him"--at that moment he recalled the
marquise's words--he would slay him.
Behind his back the other could see the woman--even as he endeavoured
to shield himself from thrust after thrust, and thought: "God! when
will it come? when shall I feel the steel through me?"--herself now a
ghastly sight. Her upper lip was drawn back in her frenzy so that her
teeth were bare as are a dog's that pauses ere it snaps; she was
standing up trembling, as with a palsy, and her mask had fallen off.
And, in what De Roquemaure felt were his last moments, he saw her
suddenly rush at the sconces and knock the candles out of them on to
the stone floor, where they lay guttering. He supposed that she had
thought to disturb his dooms-man.
If she did so think she erred. St. Georges heard the crash of her arm
against the metal, but never turned his head--to take his eye off the
other's point would have been fatal!--instead, in the light given by
the fire he crept one inch nearer the other.
"Now," he said, "now, De Roquemaure!" and as he spoke the other felt
the iron muscles in the man's wrist forcing his blade down and down;
the point was level to his adversary's thigh; an instant more, and St.
Georges's sword would release his, would suddenly spring up and--a
moment later--be through his breast.
In his agony he shrieked, "_Au secours, au secours!_" and in a last
desperate effort leaped aside, the weapon that at that moment sought
his heart with a tremendous lunge piercing his arm alone.
Another moment and St. Georges had disengaged it, drawn it forth, and
was about to plunge it through the craven's heart--this time he would
not fail!--when he heard the rustle of the woman's riding robe behind
him, he felt a shock, and his arm instantly drop nerveless by his
side; the weapon fell from his hand, and he sank back heavily on the
stone floor, the room swimming before his eyes and all becoming
rapidly dark.
Roused by her lover's cry and frenzied by the immediate death which
she saw threatening him; driven almost mad also by the look of terror
and mortal apprehension on his face, she had sprung up the room,
reached St. Georges, and buried her dagger in his back. She had aimed
under his left shoulder, where she knew the region of the heart
was--it seemed her aim was true! As he fell to the ground she knew
that she had saved De Roquemaure. Yet her frenzy was not calmed; in an
instant she had seized the sword that still was grasped in her lover's
nerveless right hand, placed it in his left, and muttered swiftly in a
voice he did not recognise:
"Through his heart!--his heart, Raoul! That way. Otherwise it will
seem murder and confound us."
"I--I dare not," the scared man muttered, shaking all over. "I cannot,
I----"
"_Lache!_" and as she hurled the epithet at him she seized the weapon
herself in her own white jewelled hand and drew it back to plunge it
through his breast so that it should meet the wound behind.
Yet that was not to be. Even as she raised the sword the door was
burst violently open, and the innkeeper, with two other men and a
waiting woman rushed into the room.
"_Grand Dieu!_" the landlord cried, shivering and shaking all over, as
he saw the terrible spectacle which the place afforded--St. Georges
stretched on the floor, the stones covered with blood, the other
wounded man leaning against the wall, the maddened woman with the
sword, which she had dropped at their entrance, lying at her feet, and
the candles out--"_Grand Dieu!_ what has been done in my house?
Murder?"
At first neither De Roquemaure nor the panting creature by his side
could answer; then the former found his tongue, while still the
landlord and the other two men stared at them and the waiting woman
hid her face in her apron, not to see the ghastly form on the floor,
and said: "Not murder, but attempted murder. This man drew on me--with
a lady present--would have assassinated me. You see my wound," and he
held up his pierced arm.
"Attempted murder!" exclaimed one of the men, he looking of a very
superior class to that of the landlord. "A strange attempt; you are
young and strong as he; armed, too, your weapon drawn. Yet it seems it
needed this also to aid you," and he stooped and picked up the woman's
toy dagger. "This demands explanation----"
"And shall be given to those entitled to ask. I am the Marquis de
Roquemaure, set upon and forced to defend myself by this fellow who
entrapped us here.--You," turning to the landlord, "saw how he caused
us to enter this house, though I told you we wanted nothing. He it was
who gave all the orders. For the rest, he was a disgraced and ruined
soldier, a common bravo and bully, who deemed me the cause of his
punishment. I answer nothing further but to the king whom I serve, or
his representative."
"He looks not like a bravo or bully," said the man who had spoken
last, as he knelt down by St. Georges and took his wrist between his
fingers. "He scarce seems that."
"Is he dead?" the woman asked hoarsely now, as she bent down over her
victim.
"Not yet. There is still some pulse."
And even as he spoke, St. Georges opened his eyes, looked up at him,
and muttered once, "Dorine!"
Then the eyes closed again and his head fell back on the other's arm.
THE SECOND PERIOD.