In the Day of Adversity

"Do you deny that you are Monsieur de Roquemaure?"

"I neither deny nor assert. Under that name you have chosen to waylay and insult me. Under that name, since you will have it, I intend to have reparation."

"Do you deny the assault at Aignay-le-Duc?"

"I deny nothing, assert nothing."

"So be it," St. Georges said. "I have made no mistake. You are the man. Your voice, your expression condemn you. Your face, though you have shaved off your beard" – and he saw the other start as he mentioned this – "condemns, convicts you. Deny, therefore, these two things or draw your sword. We have wasted enough time."

"We have," the other answered, and as he spoke he dismounted from his horse, St. Georges doing the same.

CHAPTER XVII.

"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-léger, 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 Lodève'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 – "

"Lâche!" 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."