The Wild Geese

"I want you to come with me and see it out," Asgill said. He wheeled brusquely to the garden gate, but when he was within a pace of it he paused and turned his head. "Mr. O'Beirne," he said, "I'm going in by this gate, and it's not much to be expected I'll come out any way but feet first. Will you be telling her, if you please, that I knew that same?"

"I will," Morty answered, genuinely distressed. "But I'm asking, is there no other way?"

"There is none," Asgill said. And he opened the gate.

Payton was waiting for him on the path under the yew-trees, with two of his troopers on guard in the background. He had removed his coat and vest, and stood, a not ungraceful figure, in the sunshine, bending his rapier and feeling its point with his thumb. He was doing this when his eyes surprised his opponent's entrance, and, without desisting from his employment, he smiled.

If the other's courage had begun to wane – but, with all his faults, Asgill was brave – that smile would have restored it. For it roused in him a stronger passion than fear – the passion of hatred. He saw in the man before him, the man with the cruel smile, who handled his weapon with a scornful ease, a demon – a demon who, in pure malice, without reason and without cause, would take his life, would rob him of joy and love and sunshine, and hurl him into the blackness of the gulf. And he was seized with a rage at once fierce and deliberate. This man, who would kill him, and whom he saw smiling before him, he would kill! He thirsted to set his foot upon his throat and squeeze, and squeeze the life out of him! These were the thoughts that passed through his mind as he paused an instant at the gate to throw off the encumbering coat. Then he advanced, drawing his weapon as he moved, and fixing his eyes on Payton; who, for his part, reading the other's thoughts in his face – for more than once he had seen that look – put himself on his guard without a word.

Asgill had no more than the rudimentary knowledge of the sword which was possessed in that day by all who wore it. He knew that, given time and the decent observances of the fencing-school, he would be a mere child in Payton's hands; that it would matter nothing whether the sun were on this side or that, or his sword the longer or the shorter by an inch. The moment he was within reach therefore, and his blade touched the other's he rushed in, lunging fiercely at his opponent's breast and trusting to the vigour of his attack and the circular sweep of his point to protect himself. Not seldom has a man skilled in the subtleties of the art found himself confused and overcome by this mode of attack. But Payton had met his man too often on the green to be taken by surprise. He parried the first thrust, the second he evaded by stepping adroitly aside. By the same movement he put the sun in Asgill's eyes.

Again the latter rushed in, striving to get within his opponent's guard; and again Payton stepped aside, and allowed the random thrust to pass wasted under his arm. Once more the same thing happened – Asgill rushed in, Payton parried or evaded with the ease and coolness of long-tried skill. By this time Asgill, forced to keep his blade in motion, was beginning to breathe quickly. The sweat stood on his brow, he struck more and more wildly, and with less and less strength or aim. He was aware – it could be read in the glare of his eyes – that he was being reduced to the defensive; and he knew that to be fatal. An oath broke from his panting lips and he rushed in again, even more recklessly, more at random than before, his sole object now to kill the other, to stab him at close quarters, no matter what happened to himself.

Again Payton avoided the full force of the rush, but this time after a different fashion. He retreated a step. Then, with a flicker and a girding of steel on steel, Asgill's sword flew from his hand, and at the same instant – or so nearly at the same instant that the disarming and the thrust might have seemed to an untrained eye one motion – Payton turned his wrist and his sword buried itself in Asgill's body. The unfortunate man recoiled with a gasping cry, staggered and sank sideways to the ground.

"By the powers," O'Beirne exclaimed, springing forward, "a foul stroke! By G – d, a foul stroke! He was disarmed. I – "

"Have a care what you say!" Payton answered slowly, and in a terrible tone. "You'd do better to look to your friend – for he'll need it."

"It's you that struck him after he was disarmed!" Morty cried, almost weeping with rage. "Devil a bit of a chance did you give him! You – "

"Silence, I say!" Payton answered, in a fierce tone of authority. "I know my duty; and if you know yours you'll look to him."

He turned aside with that, and thrust the point of his sword twice and thrice into the sod before he sheathed the weapon. Meanwhile Morty had cast himself down beside the fallen man, who, speechless, and with his head hanging, continued to support himself on his hand. A patch of blood, bright-coloured, was growing slowly on his vest: and there was blood on his lips.

"Oh, whirra, whirra, what'll I do?" the Irishman exclaimed, helplessly wringing his hands. "What'll I do for him? He's murdered entirely!"

Payton, aided by one of the troopers, was putting on his coat and vest. He paused to bid the other help the gentleman. Then, with a cold look at the fallen man, for whom, though they had been friends, as friends go in the world, he seemed to have no feeling except one of contempt, he walked away in the direction of the rear of the house.

By the time he reached the back door the alarm was abroad, the maids were running to and fro and screaming, and on the threshold he encountered Flavia. Pale as the stricken man, she looked on Payton with an eye of horror, and, as he stood aside to let her pass, she drew – unconscious what she did – her skirts away, that they might not touch him.

He went on, with rage in his heart. "Very good, my lady," he muttered, "very good! But I've not done with you yet. I know a way to pull your pride down. And I'll go about it!"

He might have moved less at ease, he might have spoken less confidently, had he, before he retired from the scene of the fight, cast one upward glance in the direction of the house, had he marked an opening high up in the wall of yew, and noticed through that opening a window, so placed that it alone of all the windows in the house commanded the scene of action. For then he would have discovered at that casement a face he knew, and a pair of stern eyes that had followed the course of the struggle throughout, noted each separate attack, and judged the issue – and the man.

And he might have taken warning.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE PITCHER AT THE WELL

The surgeon of that day was better skilled in letting blood than in staunching it, in cupping than in curing. It was well for Luke Asgill, therefore, that none lived nearer than distant Tralee. It was still more fortunate for him that there was one in the house to whom the treatment of such a wound as his was an everyday matter, and who was guided in his practice less by the rules of the faculty than by those of experience and common sense.

Even under his care Asgill's life hung for many hours in the balance. There was a time, when he was at his weakest, when his breath, in the old phrase, would not raise a feather, and those about his bed despaired of detaining the spirit fluttering to be free. The servants were ready to raise the "keen," the cook sought the salt for the death-plate. But Colonel John, mindful of many a man found living on the field hours after he should, by all the rules, have died, did not despair; and little by little, though the patient knew nothing of the battle which was maintained for his life, the Colonel's skill and patience prevailed. The breathing grew stronger and more regular; and, though it seemed likely that fever would follow and the end must remain uncertain, death, for the moment, was repelled.

Now, he who possesses the habit of command in emergencies, who, when others are distraught and wring their hands, knows both what to do and how to do it, cannot fail to impress the imagination. Unsupported by Flavia, unaided by her deft fingers, Colonel John might have done less: yet she who seconded him the most ably, who fetched and carried for him, and shrank from no sight of blood or wound, was also the one who yielded him the fullest meed, and succumbed the most completely to his ascendancy. Flavia's feelings towards her cousin had been altering hour by hour; and this experience of him hastened her tacit surrender. She had seen him in many parts. It had been hers to witness, by turns, his defeat and his triumph. She had felt aversion, born of his unwelcome appearance in the character of her guardian, yield to a budding interest, which his opposition to her plans, and his success in foiling them, had converted anew into disdain and hatred.

But in all strong passions lurk the seeds of the opposite. The object of hatred is the object of interest. So it had been in her case. The very lengths to which she had allowed herself to be carried against him had revolted her, and pity had taken the place of hatred. Nor pity alone. For, having seen how high he could rise in adversity, what courage, what patience, what firmness he could exert – for her sake who persecuted him – she now saw also how naturally he took the lead of others, how completely he dominated the crowd. And while she no longer marvelled at the skill with which he had baffled the Admiral and Cammock, and thwarted plans which she began to appraise at their value, she found herself relying upon him, as she watched him moving to and fro, to an extent which startled and frightened her.

Was it only that morning that she had trembled for her brother's life? Was it only that morning that she had opened her eyes and known him craven, unworthy of his name and race? Was it only that morning that she had sent into peril the man who lay wan and moribund before her; only that morning that she had felt her unhappiness greater than she could bear, her difficulties insuperable, her loneliness a misery? For if that were so why did she now feel so different? Why did she now feel inexplicably relieved, inconceivably at ease, almost happy? Why, with the man whom she had thrust into peril lying in extremis before her, and claiming all her gratitude, did she find her mind straying to another? Finally, why, with her troubles the same, with her brother no less dishonoured, were her thoughts neither with him nor with herself, but with the man whose movements she watched, whose hands touched hers in the work of tendance, whose voice once chid her sharply – and gave her an odd pang of pleasure – who, low-toned, ordered her hither and thither, and was obeyed?

She asked herself the question as she sat in the darkened room, watching. And in the twilight she blushed. Once, at a crisis, Colonel John had taken her roughly by the wrist and forced her to hold the bandage so, while he twisted it. She looked at the wrist now, and, fancying she could see the imprint of his fingers on it, she blushed more deeply.

Presently there came, as they sat listening to the fluttering breath, a low scratching at the door. At a sign from Colonel Sullivan, who sat on the inner side of the bed, she stole to it and found Morty O'Beirne on the threshold. He beckoned to her, and, closing the door, she followed him downstairs, to where, in the living-room, she found the other O'Beirne standing sheepishly beside the table.

"It's not knowing what to do, we are," Morty said.

He did not look at her, nor did his brother. Her heart sank. "What is it?" she asked.

"The fiend's in the man," Morty replied, tapping with his fingers on the table. "But – it's you will be telling her, Phelim."

"It's he that's not content," Phelim muttered. "The thief of the world!"

"Curse him!" cried his brother.

"Not content?" she echoed. "Not content? After what he's done?" For an instant her eyes flashed hot indignation, her very hair seemed to rise about her head. Then the downcast demeanour of the two, their embarrassment, their silence, told the story; and she gasped. "He's for – fighting my brother?" she whispered.

"He'll be content with no less," Morty answered, with a groan. "Bad cess to him! And The McMurrough – sure it's certain death, and who's blaming him, but he's no stomach for it. And whirra, whirra, on that the man says he'll be telling it in Tralee that he'd not meet him, and as far as Galway City he'll cut his comb for him! Ay, bedad, he says that, and that none of his name shall show their face there, night or day, fair or foul, race or cockfight – the bloody-minded villain!"

She listened, despairing. The house was quiet, as houses in the country are of an afternoon, and the quieter for the battle with death which was joined in the darkened room upstairs. Her thoughts were no longer with the injured man, however, but in that other room, where her brother lurked in squalid fear – fear that in a nameless man might have been pardoned, but in him, in a McMurrough, head of his race, last of his race, never! She came of heroes, to her the strain had descended pure and untainted, and she would rather have seen him dead. The two men before her – who knew, alas! who knew! – she was sure that they would have taken up the glove, unwillingly and perforce, perhaps, but they would have fought! While her brother, The McMurrough – But even while she thought of it, she saw through the open door the figure of a man saunter slowly past the courtyard gates, his sword under his arm. It was the Englishman. She felt the added sting. Her cheek, that had been pale, burned darkly, her eyes shone.

"St. Patrick fly away with the toad and the ugly smile of him!" Morty said. "I'm thinking it's between the two of us, Phelim, my jewel! And he that's killed will help the other."

"God forbid!" Flavia cried, pale with horror at the thought. "Not another!"

"But sure, and I'm not seeing how else we'll be rid of him handsomely," Phelim replied.

"No!" she repeated firmly. "No! I forbid it!"

Again the man sauntered by the entrance, and again he cast the same insolent, smiling look at the house. They watched him pass, an ominous shadow in the sunshine, and Flavia shuddered.

"But what will you be doing, then?" Morty asked, rubbing, his chin in perplexity. "He's saying that if The McMurrough'll not meet him by four o'clock, and it isn't much short of it, he'll be riding this day! And him once gone he's a bitter tongue, and 'twill be foul shame on the house!"

Flavia stood silent in thought, but at length she drew in her breath sharply – she had made up her mind. "I know what I will do," she said. "I will tell him all." And she turned to go.

"It's not worth the shoe-leather!" Morty cried after her, letting his scorn of James be seen.

But she was out of hearing, and when she returned a minute later she was followed, not by James McMurrough, but by Colonel Sullivan. The Colonel's face, seen in the full light, had lost the brown of health; it was thin and peaky, and still bore signs of privation. But he trod firmly, and his eyes were clear and kind. If he was aware of the O'Beirnes' embarrassment, his greeting did not betray it.

"I am willing to help if I can," he said. "What is your trouble?"

"Tell him," Flavia said, averting her face.

They told him lamely – they were scarcely less jealous of the honour of the house than she was – in almost the same words in which they had broken the news to her. "And the curse of Cromwell on me, but he's parading up and down now," Morty continued, "and cocking his eye at the sun-dial whenever he passes, as much as to say, 'Is it coming, you are?' till the heart's fairly melted in me with the rage!"

"And it's shame on us we let him be!" cried Phelim.

Colonel John did not answer. He was silent even when, under the eyes of all, the ominous shadow passed again before the entrance gates – came and went. He was so long silent that Flavia turned to him at last, and held out her hands. "What shall we do?" she cried – and in that cry she betrayed her new dependence on him. "Tell us!"