CHAPTER XXVIII -- THE DUEL ON THE SANDS--Continued.
And now it was clear day. The lime-washed walls of the town gleamed insunshine, and the shadows of the men at war upon the sand stretched farback from their feet toward the white land. Birds twittered, and shookthe snow from the shrubbery of the Duke's garden; the river cried belowthe arches, but not loud enough to drown the sound of stumbling steps,and Montaiglon threw a glance in the direction whence they came, even atthe risk of being spitted on his opponent's weapon.
He parried a thrust in quarte and cried, "Stop! stop! _Remettez-vous,monsieur!_ Here comes a woman."
The Chamberlain looked at the dishevelled figure running awkwardly overthe rough stones and slimy weeds, muttered an oath, and put his point upagain.
"Come on," said he; "we'll have the whole town about our lugs in tenminutes."
"But the lady?" said Count Victor, guarding under protest.
"It's only Kate," said the Chamberlain, and aimed a furious thrustin tierce. Montaiglon parried by a beat of the edge of his forte, andforced the blade upwards. He could have disarmed by the simplest trickof Girard, but missed the opportunity from an insane desire to save hisopponent's feelings in the presence of a spectator. Yet the leniencycost them dear.
"Sim! Sim!" cried out the woman in a voice full of horror and entreaty,panting towards the combatants. Her call confused her lover: in amingling of anger and impatience he lunged wildly, and Count Victor'sweapon took him in the chest.
"Zut!" cried the Frenchman, withdrawing the sword and flicking the bloodfrom the point with a ludicrous movement.
The Chamberlain writhed at his feet, muttered something fierce inGaelic, and a great repugnance took possession of the other. He lookedat his work; he quite forgot the hurrying woman until she ran past himand threw herself beside the wounded man.
"Oh, Sim! Sim!" she wailed, in an utterance the most distressing. Herlover turned upon his back and smiled sardonically at her out of a faceof paper. "I wish ye had been a little later, Kate," he said, "or that Ihad begun with a hale arm. Good God! I've swallowed a hot cinder. I loveyou, my dear; I love you, my dear. Oh, where the de'il's my flageolet?"And then his head fell back.
With frantic hands she unloosed his cravat, sought and staunched thewound with her handkerchief, and wept the while with no sound, thoughher bosom, white like the spray of seas, seemed bound to burst above hercorsage.
Count Victor sheathed his weapon, and "Madame," said he withpreposterous inadequacy, "this--this--is distressing; this--this--" hedesired to offer some assistance, but baulked at the fury of the eyesshe turned on him.
"Oh, you!--you!--you!" she gasped, choking to say even so little. "It isenough, is it not, that you have murdered him, without staying to see metortured?"
To this he could, of course, make no reply. His quandary was immense.Two hundred yards away was that white phantom town shining in themorning sun that rose enormous over the eastern hills beyond the littlelapping silver waves. A phantom town, with phantom citizens doubtlessprying through the staring eyes of those closed shutters. A phantomtown--town of fairy tale, with grotesque roofs, odd _corbeau_-steppedgables, smokeless chimneys, all white with snow, and wild birds on itsterrace, preening in the blessed light of the sun. He stood with hisback to the pair upon the sand. "My God! 'tis a dream," said he. "Ishall laugh in a moment." He seemed to himself to stand thus an age, andyet in truth it was only a pause of minutes when the Chamberlain spokewith the tone of sleep and insensibility as from another world.
"I love you, my dear; I love you, my dear--Olivia."
Mrs. Petullo gave a cry of pain and staggered to her feet. She turnedupon Count Victor a face distraught and eyes that were wild with thewretchedness of the disillusioned. Her fingers were playing nervously ather lips; her shoulders were roughened and discoloured by the cold; herhair falling round her neck gave her the aspect of a slattern. She, too,looked at the facade of the town and saw her husband's windows shutteredand indifferent to her grief.
"I do not know whether you have killed him or not," she said at last."It does not matter--oh! it matters all--no, no, it does not matter--Oh!could you not--could you not kill me too?"
For his life he could not have answered: he but looked at her in mortalpity, and at that she ground her teeth and struck him on the lips.
"Awake, decidedly awake!" he said, and shrugged his shoulders; and thenfor the first time he saw that she was shivering.
"Madame," he said, "you will die of cold: permit me," and he stooped andpicked up his coat from the sand and placed it without resistance on hershoulders, like a cloak. She drew it, indeed, about her with tremblingfingers as if her senses craved the comfort though her detestationof the man who gave it was great. But in truth she was demented now,forgetting even the bleeding lover. She gave little paces on the sand,with one of her shoes gone from her feet, and wrung her hands and sobbedmiserably.
Count Victor bent to the wounded man and found him regainingconsciousness. He did what he could, though that of necessity waslittle, to hasten his restoration, and relinquished the office only whenapproaching footsteps on the shore made him look up to see a group ofworkmen hastening to the spot where the Chamberlain lay on the edge ofthe tide and the lady and the foreigner beside him.
"This man killed him," cried Mrs. Petullo, pointing an accusing finger.
"I hope I have not killed him," said he, "and in any case it was anhonourable engagement; but that matters little at this moment when thefirst thing to do is to have him removed home. So far as I am concerned,I promise you I shall be quite ready to go with you and see him safelylodged."
As the wounded man was borne through the lodge gate with Count Victor,coatless, in attendance, the latter looked back and saw Mrs. Petullo,again bare-shouldered, standing before her husband's door and gazingafter them.
Her temper had come back; she had thrown his laced coat into theapproaching sea!