Читать книгу The Iron Mistress - Paul Iselin Wellman - Страница 50
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ОглавлениеThat moon ... the same moon which had beguiled another garden only the night before ... now seemed only to give an added ghastliness to this scene.
In their white shirts the antagonists faced each other, Narcisse slender compared to the duelist’s powerful breadth. Narcisse was composed and determined; Contrecourt superior and sure.
Swords were brought. Swords always were quickly available anywhere in New Orleans.
“En garde,” said Captain Dominique.
The swords sang.
Tragedy. Sheer, senseless tragedy.
Narcisse knew his only hope was in attack. For a few brief, flurrying minutes, he followed thrust with thrust. Then the inevitable.
The professional swordsman saw his opening, and lunged. Back staggered Narcisse. Strange, how the mortal sickness he felt showed in every line of his back as his sword clattered on the gravel walk.
Bowie caught him. Even before he eased his friend to the ground, he knew. A wide descending curtain of blood sheeted the white silk shirt. Narcisse looked up with a question in his eyes ... question veiling itself in death. He coughed up a mouthful of blood, his slim young legs twisted in one sudden contortion of pain. He was gone.
Bowie laid the lifeless head upon a coat and rose.
The seconds crowded about the stricken man. Contrecourt had not left his place. He stood, the point of his naked sword on the ground, watching the kneeling, stooping group, his face set and still in the moonlight.
“You killed him!” cried Malot.
“I am sorry. I would have preferred to wound him only. But these hot-headed fools must take their medicine.”
“By heaven, you’ll answer for this to me, Contrecourt!”
Contrecourt smiled coldly. “At your convenience, Malot.”
The man had courage. Moreover, this was an opportunity he had long craved. His pupils were few, he was pushed for the money with which to live. If he could defeat Malot, he would at once establish himself as the premier maître d’armes in New Orleans. And he believed in himself, absolutely.
“At once then——” began Malot.
“Your pardon.” It was Bowie. “Contrecourt meets me first.”
“But—Monsieur Bowie——”
Bowie cut the maître d’armes short. “I believe the challenge given me takes precedence?” He addressed Contrecourt.
“Oui, monsieur.” The duelist was contemptuous: he could dispose of this Américain while a man took two breaths, and still be fresh for Malot.
A singing in Bowie’s ears. Narcisse was gone ... Judalon had disdained him ... every dream in which he had indulged had gone.
He contemplated death, and it was without the instinctive inner shrinking with which nature provides all creatures. A madness was on him, cradled in the black depths of his depression, so that for the first time in his life he felt a desire for the end almost like a suicide before his final act. If he could kill that man, the finish seemed welcome. Yet, in that moment his brain was intensely active.
The duelist was waiting.
He heard himself say, “One of us is going to die tonight, Contrecourt—perhaps both.”
“The weapons, monsieur!” said Contrecourt impatiently.
“Sword or knife—take your choice.”
A surprise here. Mockingly Contrecourt lifted his blade. “This seems to serve me well enough.”
“I’ll use a knife, if I can get one.”
“A knife against a sword?” Contrecourt shrugged. “It is Monsieur’s privilege to choose his way of dying.”
Bowie looked at Captain Dominique. “Is there a room hereabouts, empty and bare? It must be completely dark.”
“What are you suggesting?” said the duelist. For the first time his composure was penetrated.
“This: it is mine to lay down the terms. You and I will be locked in a dark room. In stocking feet, to move without a sound. He who comes out ... if either does ... will be the victor.”
Contrecourt’s heavy face was a study. This suave swordsman, this killer, did not too greatly value his life: yet in the thought of groping through blackness for an antagonist he discovered something that failed to appeal to him.
He fell back on ridicule. “What outlandish—insane—rules are these? A barbarous backwoods custom, perhaps? An illustration of this man’s chawbacon vulgarity? No gentleman would suggest it!”
All at once, a rich, roaring laugh.
“Steel in the dark! This I like!” Captain Dominique You rolled forward with his sailor’s gait and looked at Malot. “You agree, monsieur, it is within the right of the man challenged to name his terms?”
“Decidedly.”
“Then Contrecourt will either apologize to Monsieur Bowie or abide by these conditions. My friend, do you wish to eat your words?”
Contrecourt angrily shook his head.
“In that case,” Dominique said, “we will proceed. As for the knife, Monsieur Bowie, I carry one on me—an old sailor’s custom. Will this suffice?”
He reached within the waistband of his ample pantaloons and from a hidden sheath drew a six-inch straight-bladed dirk with an ivory handle inlaid with gold. The knife balanced well in Bowie’s grip. He nodded.
They carried the poor limp body of Narcisse inside, and Bowie’s mood of doom grew cold, ultimate, conclusive.
Dominique said, “At the rear of this establishment is a storeroom, which is empty and windowless. The very room, it appears, that we need. Messieurs, accompany me!”
