  "Boy." "Sai." "S'pose Mr. Forrester bym-by come, you talkee he, master no got, you chin-chin he come-back." "Can do." The long-coated boy scuffed away, across the chunam floor, and disappeared in the darkness. Heywood submitted his head once more to the nimble hands of his groom, who, with horse-clippers and a pair of enormous iron shears, was trimming the stubborn chestnut locks still closer. The afternoon glow, reflected from the burnt grass and white walls of the compound, struck upward in the vault-spaces of the ground floor, and lighted oddly the keen-eyed yellow mafoo and his serious young master. Nesbit, pert as a jockey, sat on the table swinging his feet furiously. "Sturgeon would take it all right, of course," he said, with airy wisdom. "Quite the gentleman, he is. Netch'rally. No fault of his." "Not the least," Heywood assented gloomily. "Did everything he could. If I were commissioned to tell 'em outright--'The youngster can't fence'--why, we might save the day. But our man won't even listen to that. Fight's the word. Chantel will see, on the spot, directly they face. But will that stop him? No fear: he's worked up to the pitch of killing. He'll lunge first, and be surprised afterward.--So regrettable! Such remorse!--Oh, I know him!" The Cockney fidgeted for a time. His face--the face of a street-bred urchin--slowly worked into lines of abnormal cunning. "I say! I was thinking," he ventured at last. "Two swords, that's all? Just so. Now--my boy used to be learn-pidgin at Chantel's. Knows that 'ouse inside out--loafs there now, the beggar, with Chantel's cook. Why not send him over--prowling, ye know--fingers the bric-a-brac, bloomin' ass, and breaks a sword-blade. Perfectly netch'ral. 'Can secure, all plopah,' Accident, ye know. All off with their little duel. What?" Heywood chuckled, and bowed his head to the horse-clippers. "Last week," he replied. "Not to-day. This afternoon's rather late for accidents. You make me feel like Pompey on his galley: 'This thou shouldst have done, and not have spoken on't,'--Besides, those swords belonged to Chantel's father. He began as a gentleman.--But you're a good sort, Nesbit, to take the affair this fashion." Lost in smoke, the clerk grumbled that the gory affair was unmentionable nonsense. "Quite," said Heywood. "We've tried reasoning. No go. As you say, an accident. That's all can save the youngster now. Impossible, of course." He sighed. Then suddenly the gray eyes lighted, became both shrewd and distant; a malicious little smile stole about the corners of his mouth. "Have-got! The credit's yours, Nesbit. Accident: can do. And this one--by Jove, it won't leave either of 'em a leg to stand on!--Here, mafoo, makee finish!" He sprang up, clapped a helmet on the shorn head, and stalked out into the sunlight. "Come on," he called. "It's nearly time. We must pick up our young Hotspur." The clerk followed, through the glowing compound and the road. In the shade of the nunnery gate they found Rudolph, who, raising his rattan, saluted them with a pale and stoic gravity. "Are we ready?" he asked; and turning, took a slow, cool survey of the nunnery, as though looking his last--from the ditch at their feet to the red tiles, patched with bronze mould, that capped the walls and the roof. "I never left any place with less regret. Come, let's go." The three men had covered some ground before Rudolph broke the silence. "You'll find a few little things up there in my strong-box, Maurice. Some are marked for you, and the rest--will you send them Home, please?" He hesitated. "I hope neither of you will misunderstand me. I'm horribly afraid, but not--but only because this fellow will make me look absurd. If I knew the first motion!" He broke out angrily. "I cannot bear to have him laugh, also! I cannot bear!" Heywood clapped him on the shoulder, and gave a queer cough. "If that's all, never you fear! I'll teach you your guard. 'Once in a while we can finish in style.' Eh?--Rudie, you blooming German, I--I think we must have been brothers! We'll pull it off yet." Heywood spoke with a strange alacrity, and tried again to cough. This time, however, there was no mistake--he was laughing. Rudolph shot at him one glance of startled unbelief, and then, tossing his head, marched on without a word. Pride and loneliness overwhelmed him. The two at his side were no companions--not even presences. He went alone, conscious only of the long flood of sunset, and the black interlacing pattern of bamboos. The one friendly spirit had deserted, laughing; yet even this last and worst of earthly puzzles did not matter. It was true, what he had read; this, which they called death, was a lonely thing. On a broken stone bench, Sturgeon, sober and dejected, with puffy circles under his eyes, sat waiting. A long parcel, wrapped in green baize, lay across his knees. He nodded gloomily, without rising. At his feet wandered a path, rankly matted with burnt weeds, and bordered with green bottle-ends, the "dimples" choked with discs of mud. The place was a deserted garden, where the ruins of a European house--burnt by natives in some obscure madness, years ago--sprawled in desolation among wild shrubs. A little way down the path stood Teppich and Chantel, each with his back turned and his hands clasped, like a pair of sulky Napoleons, one fat, one slender. The wooden pretense of their attitude set Rudolph, for an instant, to laughing silently and bitterly. This final scene,--what justice, that it should be a mean waste, the wreck of silly pleasure-grounds, long forgotten, and now used only by grotesque play-actors. He must die, in both action and setting, without dignity. It was some comfort, he became aware, to find that the place was fairly private. Except for the breach by which they had entered, the blotched and spotted compound walls stood ruinous yet high, shutting out all but a rising slant of sunlight, and from some outpost line of shops, near by, the rattle of an abacus and the broken singsong of argument, now harsh, now drowsy. Heywood had been speaking earnestly to Sturgeon:-- "A little practice--try the balance of the swords. No more than fair." "Fair? Most certainly," croaked that battered convivialist. "Chantel can't object." He rose, and waddled down the path. Rudolph saw Chantel turn, frowning, then nod and smile. The nod was courteous, the smile full of satire. The fat ambassador returned. "Right-oh," he puffed, tugging from the baize cover a shining pair of bell-hilted swords. "Here, try 'em out." His puffy eyes turned furtively toward Rudolph. "May be bad form, Hackh, but--we all wish you luck, I fancy." Then, in a burst of candor, "Wish that unspeakable ass felt as seedy as I do--heat-stroke--drop dead--that sort of thing." Still grumbling treason, this strange second rejoined his principal. "Jackets off," commanded Heywood; and in their cinglets, each with sword under arm, the two friends took shelter behind a ragged clump of plantains. The yellow leaves, half dead with drought and blight, hung ponderous as torn strips of sheet metal in the lifeless air. Behind this tattered screen, Rudolph studied, for a moment, the lethal object in his hand. It was very graceful,--the tapering, three-cornered blade, with shallow grooves in which blood was soon to run, the silver hilt where his enemy's father had set, in florid letters, the name of "H.B. St. A. Chantel," and a date. How long ago, he thought, the steel was forged for this day. "It is Fate." He looked up sadly. "Come, show me how to begin; so that I can stand up to him." "Here, then." Slowly, easily, his long limbs transformed with a sudden youthful grace, Heywood moved through the seven positions of On Guard. "Try it." Rudolph learned only that his own clumsy imitation was hopeless. "Once more.--He can't see us." Again and again, more and more rapidly, they performed the motions of this odd rehearsal. Suddenly Heywood stepped back, and lowering his point, looked into his pupil's face, long and earnestly. "For the last time," he said: "won't you let me tell him? This is extremely silly." Rudolph hung his head, like a stubborn child. "Do you still think," he answered coldly, "that I would beg off?" With a hopeless gesture of impatience, Heywood stepped forward briskly. "Very well, then. Once more." And as their blades clashed softly together, a quick light danced in his eyes. "Here's how our friend will stick you!" His point cut a swift little circle, and sped home. By a wild instinct, the novice beat it awkwardly aside. His friend laughed, poised again, disengaged again, but in mid-career of this heartless play, stumbled and came pitching forward. Rudolph darted back, swept his arm blindly, and cried out; for with the full impetus of the mishap, a shock had run from wrist to elbow. He dropped his sword, and in stupefaction watched the red blood coursing down his forearm, and his third finger twitching convulsively, beyond control. |
"Dear fellow!" cried his opponent, scrambling upright. "So sorry! I say, that's a bad one." With a stick and a handkerchief, he twisted on a tourniquet, muttering condolence: "Pain much? Lost my balance, you know. That better?--What a clumsy accident!" Then, dodging out from the plantain screen, and beckoning,--"All you chaps! Come over here!"
Nesbit came running, but at sight of the bloody victim, pulled up short. "What ho!" he whispered, first with a stare, then a grin of mysterious joy. Sturgeon gave a sympathetic whistle, and stolidly unwound bandages. At first the two Napoleons remained aloof, but at last, yielding to indignant shouts, haughtily approached. The little group stood at fault.
Heywood wiped his sword-blade very carefully on a plantain leaf; then stood erect, to address them with a kind of cool severity.
"I regret this more than anybody," he declared, pausing, and picking his words. "We were at practice, and my friend had the misfortune to be run through the arm."
Chantel flung out his hands, in a motion at once furious and impudent.
"Zut! What a farce!--Will you tell me, please, since your friend has disabled himself"--
Heywood wheeled upon him, scornfully.
"You have no right to such an expression," he stated, with a coldness which conveyed more rage than the other man's heat. "This was entirely my fault. It's I who have spoiled your--arrangement, and therefore I am quite ready to take up my friend's quarrel."
"I have no quarrel with you," replied Chantel, contemptuously. "You saw last night how he--"
"He was quicker than I, that's all. By every circumstance, I'm the natural proxy. Besides"--the young man appealed to the company, smiling--"besides, what a pity to postpone matters, and spoil the occasion, when Doctor Chantel has gone to the trouble of a clean shirt."
The doctor recoiled, flung up a trembling arm, and as quickly dropped it. His handsome face burned darker, then faded with a mortal pallor, and for one rigid moment, took on such a strange beauty as though it were about to be translated into bronze. His brown fingers twitched, became all nerves and sinews and white knuckles. Then, stepping backward, he withdrew from the circle.
"Very well," he said lightly. "Since we are all so--irregular. I will take the substitute."
Rudolph gave a choking cry, and would have come forward; but Sturgeon clung to the wounded arm, and bound on his bandage.
"Hold still, there!" he scolded, as though addressing a horse; then growled inHeywood's ear, "Why did you go lose your temper?"
"Didn't. We can't let him walk over us, though." The young man held the sword across his throat, and whispered, "Only angry up to here!"
And indeed, through the anxious preliminary silence, he stood waiting as cool and ready as a young centurion.
His adversary, turning back the sleeves of the unfortunate white linen, picked up the other sword, and practiced his fingering on the silver hilt, while the blade answered as delicately as the bow to a violinist. At last he came forward, with thin lips and hard, thoughtful eyes, like a man bent upon dispatch. Both men saluted formally, and sprang on guard.
From the first twitter of the blades, even Rudolph knew the outcome. Heywood, his face white and anxious in the failing light, fought at full stretch, at the last wrench of skill. Chantel, for the moment, was fencing; and though his attacks came ceaseless and quick as flame, he was plainly prolonging them, discarding them, repeating, varying, whether for black-hearted merriment, or the vanity of perfect form, or love of his art. Graceful, safe, easy, as though performing the grand salute, he teased and frolicked, his bright blade puzzling the sight, scattering like quicksilver in the endless whirl and clash.
Teppich was gaping foolishly, Sturgeon shaking his head, the Cockney, with narrow body drawn together, watching, shivering, squatting on toes and finger-tips, like a runner about to spring from a mark. Rudolph, dizzy with pain and suspense, nursed his forearm mechanically. The hurried, silver ring of the hilts dismayed him, the dust from the garden path choked him like an acrid smoke.
Suddenly Chantel, dropping low like a deflected arrow, swooped in with fingers touching the ground. On "three feet," he had delivered the blow so long withheld.
The watchers shouted. Nesbit sprang up, released. But Heywood, by some desperate sleight, had parried the certainty, and even tried a riposte. Still afoot and fighting, he complained testily above the sword-play:--
"Don't shout like that! Fair field, you chaps!"
Above the sword-play, too, came gradually a murmur of voices. Through the dust, beyond the lunging figures, Rudolph was distantly aware of crowded bodies, of yellow faces grinning or agape, in the breach of the compound wall. Men of the neighboring hamlet had gathered, to watch the foreign monsters play at this new, fantastic game. Shaven heads bobbed, saffron arms pointed, voices, sharp and guttural, argued scornfully.
The hilts rang, the blades grated faster. But now it was plain that Heywood could do no more, by luck or inspiration. Fretted by his clumsy yet strong and close defense, Chantel was forcing on the end. He gave a panting laugh. Instantly, all saw the weaker blade fly wide, the stronger swerve, to dart in victorious,--and then saw Doctor Chantel staggering backward, struck full in the face by something round and heavy. The brown missile skipped along the garden path.
Rudolph was aware of crowded bodies, of yellow faces grinningAnother struck a bottle-end, and burst into milk-white fragments, like a bomb. A third, rebounding from Teppich's girdle, left him bent and gasping. Strange yells broke out, as from a tribe of apes. The air was thick with hurtling globes. Cocoanuts rained upon the company, tempestuously, as though an invisible palm were shaken by a hurricane. Among them flew sticks, jagged lumps of sun-dried clay, thick scales of plaster.
"Aow!" cried Nesbit, "the bloomin' coolies!" First to recover, he skipped about, fielding and hurling back cocoanuts.
A small but raging phalanx crowded the gap in the wall, throwing continually, howling, and exhorting one another to rush in.
"A riot!" cried Heywood, and started, sword in hand. "Come on, stop 'em!"
But it was Nesbit who, wrenching a pair of loose bottles from the path, brandishing them aloft like clubs, and shouting the unseemly battle-cries of a street-fighter, led the white men into this deadly breach. At the first shock, the rioters broke and scattered, fled round corners of the wall, crashed through bamboos, went leaping across paddy-fields toward the river. The tumult--except for lonely howls in the distance--ended as quickly as it had risen. The little band of Europeans returned from the pursuit, drenched with sweat, panting, like a squad of triumphant football players; but no one smiled.
"That explains it," grumbled Heywood. He pointed along the path to where, far off, a tall, stooping figure paced slowly toward the town, his long robe a moving strip of color, faint in the twilight. "The Sword-Pen dropped some remarks in passing."
The others nodded moodily, too breathless for reply. Nesbit's forehead bore an ugly cut, Rudolph's bandage was red and sopping. Chantel, more rueful than either, stared down at a bleeding hand, which held two shards of steel. He had fallen, and snapped his sword in the rubble of old masonry.
"No more blades," he said, like a child with a broken toy; "there are no more blades this side of Saigon."
"Then we must postpone." Heywood mopped his dripping and fiery cheeks. He tossed a piece of silver to one who wailed in the ditch,--a forlorn stranger from Hai-nan, lamenting the broken shells and empty baskets of his small venture.--"Contribution, you chaps. A bad day for imported cocoanuts. Wish I carried some money: this chit system is damnable.--Meanwhile, doctor, won't you forget anything I was rude enough to say? And come join me in a peg at the club? The heat is excessive."
