The Indiscretion of the Duchess Part 33

"Curse them!" said he, fury in his eye again. "By Heavens, if I live, I'll have a word with them for playing me such a trick! The light is all but gone now. Come, take your place. There is little choice."

"You mean to fight, then?"

"Not if you will leave me in peace: but if not--"

"Let us go back to the inn and fight to-morrow: and meanwhile things shall stand as they are," said I, repeating my offer, in the hope that he would now be more reasonable.

He looked at me sullenly; then his rage came again upon him, and he cried:

"Take your place: stand where you like, and, in G.o.d's name, be quick!" And he paused, and then added: "I cannot live another night--" And he broke off again, and finished by crying: "Quick! Are you ready?"

Seeing there was no help for it, I took up a position. No more words pa.s.sed between us, but with a gesture he signed to me to move a little: and thus he adjusted our places till we were opposite one another, about two yards between us, and each presenting his side direct to the sun, so that its slanting rays troubled each of us equally, and that but little.

Then he said:

"I will step back five paces, and do you do the like. When we are at the distance, do you count slowly, 'One--two--three,' and at 'Three' we will fire."

I did not like having to count, but it was necessary that one of us should; and he, when I pressed him, would not. Therefore it was arranged as he said. And I began to step back, but for an instant he stayed me. He was calm now, and he spoke in quiet tones.

"Even now, if you will go!" said he. "For the girl is mine; and I think that, and not my life or death, is what you care about."

"The girl is not yours and never will be," said I. But then I remembered that, the seconds not having come, my scheme had gone astray, and that if he lived in strength, Marie would be well-nigh at his mercy. And on that I grew stern, and the desire for his blood came on me; and he, I think, saw it in my face, for he smiled, and without more turned and walked to his place. And I did the like; and we turned round again and stood facing one another.

All this time my pistol had hung in the fingers of my right hand. I took it now in my left, and looked to it, and cried to the duke:

"Are you ready?"

And he answered easily:

"Yes, I'm ready."

Then I raised my arm and took my aim,--and if the aim were not true on his heart, my hand and not my will deserves the praise of Mercy,--and I cried aloud:

"One!" and paused; and cried "Two!"

And as the word left my lips--before the final fatal "Three!" was so much as ready to my tongue--while I yet looked at the duke to see that I was not taking him unawares--loud and sharp two shots rang out at the same instant in the still air: I felt the whizz of a bullet, as it shaved my ear; and the duke, without a sound, fell forward on the sands, his pistol exploding as he fell.

After all we had our witnesses!

CHAPTER XX.

The Duke's Epitaph.

For a moment I stood in amazement, gazing at my opponent where he lay prostrate on the sands. Then, guided by the smoke which issued from the bushes, I darted across to the low stone wall and vaulted on to the top of it. I dived into the bushes, parting them with head and hand: I was conscious of a man's form rushing by me, but I could pay no heed to him, for right in front of me, in the act of re-loading his pistol, I saw the burly inn-keeper Jacques Bontet. When his eyes fell on me, as I leaped out almost at his very feet, he swore an oath and turned to run. I raised my hand and fired. Alas! the Duke of Saint-Maclou had been justified in his confidence; for, to speak honestly, I do not believe my bullet went within a yard of the fugitive. Hearing the shot and knowing himself unhurt, he halted and faced me. There was no time for re-loading. I took my pistol by the muzzle and ran at him. My right arm was nearly useless; but I took it out of the sling and had it ready, for what it was worth. I saw that the fellow's face was pale and that he displayed no pleasure in the game. But he stood his ground; and I, made wary by the recollection of my maimed state, would not rush on him, but came to a stand about a yard from him, reconnoitering how I might best spring on him. Thus we rested for a moment till remembering that the duke, if he were not already dead, lay at the mercy of the other scoundrel, I gathered myself together and threw myself at Jacques Bontet. He also had clubbed his weapon, and he struck wildly at me as I came on. My head he missed, and the blow fell on my right shoulder, settling once for all the question whether my right arm was to be of any use or not. Yet its uselessness mattered not, for I countered his blow with a better, and the b.u.t.t of my pistol fell full and square on his forehead. For a moment he stood looking at me, with hatred and fear in his eyes: then, as it seemed to me, quite slowly his knees gave way under him; his face dropped down from mine; he might have been sinking into the ground, till at last, his knees being bent right under him, uttering a low groan, he toppled over and lay on the ground.

Spending on him and his state no more thought that they deserved, I s.n.a.t.c.hed his pistol from him (for mine was broken at the junction of barrel and stock), and, without waiting to load (and indeed with one hand helpless and in the agitation which I was suffering it would have taken me more than a moment), I hastened back to the wall, and, parting the bushes, looked over. It was a strange sight that I saw. The duke was no longer p.r.o.ne on his face, as he had fallen, but lay on his back, with his arms stretched out, crosswise; and by his side knelt a small spare man, who searched, hunted, and rummaged with hasty, yet cool and methodical, touch, every inch of his clothing. Up and down, across and across, into every pocket, along every lining, aye, down to the boots, ran the nimble fingers; and in the still of the evening, which seemed not broken but rather emphasized by the rumble of the tide that had begun to come in over the sands from the Mount, his pa.s.sionate curses struck my ears. I recollect that I smiled--nay, I believe that I laughed--for the man was my old acquaintance Pierre--and Pierre was still on the track of the Cardinal's Necklace; and he had not doubted, any more than I had doubted, that the duke carried it upon his person. Yet Pierre found it not, for he was growing angry now; he seemed to worry the still body, pushing it and tossing the arms of it to and fro as a puppy tosses a slipper or a cushion. And all the while the unconscious face of the Duke of Saint-Maclou was turned up to heaven, and a stiff smile seemed to mock the baffled plunderer. And I also wondered where the necklace was.

Then I let myself down on to the noiseless sands and stole across to the spot where the pair were. Pierre's hands were searching desperately and wildly now; he no longer expected to find, but he could not yet believe that the search was in very truth in vain. Absorbed in his task, he heard me not; and coming up I set my foot on the pistol that lay by him, and caught him, as the duke had caught Lafleur his comrade, by the nape of the neck, and said to him, in a bantering tone:

"Well, is it not there, my friend?"

He wriggled; but the strength of the little man in a struggle at close quarters was as nothing, and I held him easily with my one sound hand. And I mocked him, exhorting him to look again, telling him that everything was not to be seen from a stable, and bidding him call Lafleur from h.e.l.l to help him. And under my grip he grew quiet and ceased to search; and I heard nothing but his quick breathing. And I laughed at him as I plucked him off the duke and flung him on his back on the sands, and stood looking down on him. But he asked no mercy of me; his small eyes answered defiance back to me, and he glanced still wistfully at the quiet man beside us.

Yet he was to escape me--with small pain to me, I confess. For at the moment a cry rang loud in my ear: I knew the voice; and though I kept my foot on Pierre's pistol, yet I turned my head. And on the instant the fellow sprang to his feet, and, with an agility that I could not have matched, started running across the sands toward the Mount. Before I had realized what he was about, he had thirty yards' start of me. I heard the water rushing in now; he must wade deep, nay, he must swim to win the Mount. But from me he was safe, for I was no such runner as he. Yet, had he and I been alone, I would have pursued him. But the cry rang out again, and, giving no more thought to him, I turned whither Marie Delha.s.se, come in pursuance of my directions, stood with a hand pointed in questioning at the duke, and the pistol that I had given her fallen from her fingers on the sand. And she swayed to and fro, till I set my arm round her and steadied her.

"Have you killed him?" she asked in a frightened whisper.

"I did not so much as fire at him," I answered. "We were attacked by thieves."

"By thieves?"

"The inn-keeper and another. They thought that he carried the necklace, and tracked us here."

"And did they take it?"

"It was not on him," I answered, looking into her eyes.

She raised them to mine and said simply:

"I have it not;" and with that, asking no more, she drew near to the duke, and sat down by him on the sand, and lifted his head on to her lap, and wiped his brow with her handkerchief, saying in a low voice, "Is he dead?"

Now, whether it be, as some say, that the voice a man loves will rouse him when none else will, or that the duke's swoon had merely come to its natural end, I know not; but, as she spoke, he, who had slept through Pierre's rough handling, opened his eyes, and, seeing where he was, tried to raise his hand, groping after hers: and he spoke, with difficulty indeed, yet plainly enough, saying:

"The rascals thought I had the necklace. They did not know how kind you had been, my darling."

I started where I stood. Marie grew red and then white, and looked down at him no longer with pity, but with scorn and anger on her face.

"I have it not," she said again. "For all heaven, I would not touch it!"

And she looked up to me as she said it, praying me with her eyes to believe.

But her words roused and stung the duke to an effort and an activity that I thought impossible to him; for he rolled himself from her lap, and, raising himself on his hand, with half his body lifted from the ground, said in a loud voice:

"You have it not? You haven't the necklace? Why, your message told me that you would never part from it again?"

"I sent no message," she answered in a hard voice, devoid of pity for him; how should she pity him? "I sent no message, save that I would sooner die than see you again."

Amazement spread over his face even in the hour of his agony.

"You sent," said he, "to say that you would await me to-night, and to ask for the necklace to adorn yourself for my coming."

Though he was dying, I could hardly control myself to hear him speak such words. But Marie, in the same calm scornful voice asked:

"By whom did the message come?"