"Hound!" she exclaimed, "you apply that word to me? To me?"

"The woman speaks well," St. Georges said, warding off the blow with his arm while his eye rested on her for a moment; "it is a matter of killing. Either you or I have to be killed. To-night! Do you hear, or are you struck dumb with fear?"

"No," the other replied, at last, with amazement. "Who are you who, under a name I know not, dare to a.s.sault me thus with such opprobrious words? Nay," turning to the masked woman, who was again muttering in his ear, "have no fear. I will have his blood for it. If he is a gentleman with whom I can cross swords, we fight ere another hour pa.s.ses."

"Also," St. Georges broke in, "you are, I perceive, a coward, besides the other things I have charged you with. You know who I am well enough. If not--if your memory is as treacherous as your courage seems poor, let me remind you. I am the man whom you attacked with five others at Aignay-le-Duc; the man whose child you sought to slay; the father of the child whom your woman and your man-servant seized away from one who had it in his possession, and whom they slew also, you not appearing on the scene. You are careful of yourself, Monsieur de Roquemaure! In the first treacherous attack you shielded your head as none other's head was shielded; in the second you employed a woman and a man-servant to do that which, perhaps, you feared to do yourself."

Every word he uttered was studied insult, every word was weighed before it was delivered, subst.i.tuted for any other which rose to his lips if not deemed by him sufficiently galling. He had sworn to kill this man if ever he encountered him again, and he meant to kill him to-night now he had met him. Therefore, since he was resolved he should have no loophole of escape from crossing swords with him, he so phrased his remarks that he must fight or acknowledge himself the veriest poltroon that breathed.

"But," he continued, "if you still value your hide so much that you dare not meet me, now at once, tell me where you and this woman--if it be the same, as I suppose--have hidden my child; lead me to her, and then you shall go free. Only choose, and choose at once."

He heard the woman mutter to De Roquemaure: "Who is the woman he speaks of, who, Raoul?" while also he saw her eyes glisten again through the mask; then, as he strove to catch her companion's reply, that companion turned on him, and said:

"Monsieur St. Georges, as you term yourself, be very sure I intend to slay you to-night. I do not know you, but your insults to me and to--this--lady, although the utterances of a madman, have to be wiped out at once. As to the child you mention, and its kidnapping by a servant of mine and a woman--bah!--I know not of what you speak."

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

"I neither deny nor a.s.sert. 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 a.s.sault at Aignay-le-Duc?"

"I deny nothing, a.s.sert 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 _n.o.ble 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 a.s.sist 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-leger_, 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 gla.s.ses 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce of twenty square feet of coa.r.s.e 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 Lodeve'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 a.s.sert 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 hoa.r.s.ely.

"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 coa.r.s.e cover on the table in a ma.s.s 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 gla.s.s full, drain it a draught, throw down the gla.s.s, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 G.o.d above us I slay you in the next pa.s.s!"

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: "G.o.d! 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.