The presence of Don Marcos with a sword in either hand disturbed their reflections and interrupted their walking back and forth. They both came to a standstill. The Colonel looked at the sky, then took several paces in different directions. He wanted to fix it so that neither of the contestants would have the sun in his eyes.
Finally he proudly thrust one of the swords into the ground. It seemed to him appropriate to the character of the place, to make use of these ancient weapons. They seemed to him more in harmony with Lewis" romantic castle, than two stakes or two cans. But his satisfaction this time was of short duration. On raising his eyes, he saw that Prince, and he saw Martinez....
Poor Colonel! Up to that moment he had proceeded like a priest intoxicated by his own ceremonious words and his own incense, without thinking of the person in whose interest they are offered up. He had prepared all these formalities with the blind fervor of a professional who resumes his functions after several years of inaction, and thinks only of his work, forgetting for whom it is being done. He had managed everything in accordance with the rites, so that two gentlemen might kill each other in compliance with the strictest conventions; but now, at the supreme moment, he realized for the first time that these two men were his Prince and his Martinez, his fellow countryman, his hero.
He was amazed to think that he had been able to go as far as he had gone up to that point. He felt the astonishment of a drunken man recovering his reason in the midst of objects broken by him in a fierce delirium.
He recalled Castro"s words and those of the doctor; why had _he_ not seen that this duel was a piece of foolishness? Repentance seemed to rush upon him. There was a burning sensation in his eyes, which began to fill with tears. But now it was too late. He must go on, even though his serenity should fail him.
The one thing that he had forgotten in his minute preparations was the tape measure, and he saw in this omission an act of Providence. Starting from the sword planted in the ground he began to pace off the terrain.
But they were not paces that he took; they were enormous strides. He fairly leaped. Now he was absolutely sure of the ridiculousness of his appearance, as his coattails flapped back and forth like wings, as they were thrust aside by the vigorous movements of his legs. "Fifteen paces." And he planted the second sword.
If he could have had his way, he would have gone to the farthest end of the open field; perhaps as far as the place where the automobiles were awaiting. Then he looked uneasily at the ground he had measured. It was surely over twenty meters; a betrayal! What cowardice! Might G.o.d and gentlemen forgive him!
Once more he brought out the five-franc piece. He had to decide again by chance the position of each contestant. The Parisian captain greeted this proposal with a bored air.
"But I told you before to do whatever you pleased!"
Lewis was muttering impatiently under his mustache.
When the coin had marked the position of each one, Don Marcos placed the Prince beside one sword.
"Marquis: your hat," he said in a low voice.
Lubimoff, understanding this suggestion, took off his hat, throwing it some distance away. His adversary could not fight with his _kepis_ on his head. Its yellowish color and the emblem of the Legion embroidered on the brim of the cap made him conspicuous in an unfair manner. His uniform also worried Toledo, who tried to do away with all the visible details on it.
a.s.sisted by one of the captains, he proceeded to strip Martinez of his decorations of honor, after placing him beside the other sword. It was like a ceremony of degradation. They took off his _kepis_, then his medals, the red ribbon that hung from his shoulder, and the dark tan strips across his breast and the belt of the same color around his waist. The Lieutenant seemed reduced in stature and dignity in his loose uniform, without his decorations. The Parisian, always in a merry mood, compared him to a plucked bird.
The Colonel felt that it was necessary to repeat aloud the conditions of the duel. The Prince knew them and was accustomed to such encounters. It was Martinez who needed his suggestions. After he, as the director of the combat, should give the word "Fire!" he would slowly count, "one, two, three." They might aim and fire in that s.p.a.ce of time. "Be very careful, Lieutenant!" Don Marcos spoke with tragic solemnity.
"If you fire before the _one_ or after the _three_, you will be declared a felon."
The matter of being declared a felon frightened the young man. He didn"t know exactly what it was, but the Colonel"s look as he said this terrible word, made a deep impression on him. He no longer thought so vehemently of killing his adversary. This desire retreated into the background. Nor did he think of the fact that he himself might be killed. His one preoccupation was to calculate the time properly and obey instructions without bothering about aiming; to fire before the terrible _three_; so that he should not be given that horrible mysterious name that made his hair stand on end.
Don Marcos entered the castle, and appeared again with the two loaded pistols. He gave one to the Prince. The latter did not need any lessons.
He put the other in the Lieutenant"s right hand, and told him how he should stand, with his arm bent, holding the weapon high, presenting only the narrow side of his body to his adversary. Once more he dwelt on his warning. He should be careful not to make a mistake! Now he knew!
_One ... two ... three...._
He himself stood midway between the adversaries withdrawing only a few paces from the line of fire. At that moment he was willing to die, so they both might remain unharmed!
He took off his hat solemnly, and with a gesture of profound sadness.
"Gentlemen ..."
During the entire morning, as he walked from one place to another, making his preparations, he had not ceased to think of what he would say at that moment, working up a superb piece of oratory, brief and stirring. He had frequently spoken at duels, meriting the approval of the other seconds, retired Generals, and such experts, accustomed to formalities of the kind. But the short harangue of to-day was going to be his masterpiece.
"Gentlemen ..." he repeated. He hesitated, not knowing what to add, as it had all been blotted from his memory. With a stammering voice, he went on saying whatever occurred to him, with no attempt at order, and without remembering a single word of the phrases which he had so carefully polished some hours before.
"There was still time ... a little good will on their part; they were both men of courage who had proved their valor ... an explanation at the last moment was no dishonor!"
His words were lost in a tense silence. But this silence was not absolute. There was somebody behind the Colonel, kicking the ground. It was Lewis who was consulting his watch, with a scowl. It was after three o"clock; the good series in the Casino had already begun.
The Colonel decided to end his speech. Besides, he was frightened at the motionless and rigid figure of his Prince, with his pistol raised. He had never seen him so ugly. His face was an earthen color, there was a squint in his eyes, and his cheek bones protruded. His features had been changed in a moment, as though the savagery of his remote ancestors, awakened within, had risen to his face.
"Since there is no possible agreement ..."
At that moment the Colonel thought he had recalled the last part of his forgotten speech. But the tread of brilliant words escaped him again, and he was obliged to improvise, so he ended in a solemn fashion:
"Come, gentlemen! Honor ... is honor; and the laws of chivalry ... are the laws of chivalry."
He heard at his back the murmur of approval. It was the voice of the former ticket-seller. "Bravo! Wonderful!" But he did not care to hear what he said. You could never tell when that fellow was in earnest.
"Ready?"
The silence of the two adversaries gave the Colonel to understand that he might give the words of command.
"Fire!... One ..."
A shot rang out. Martinez, who was only thinking of the terrible three, had fired.
He saw the Prince standing in front of him. He looked much taller; he could see the black hole of his weapon, and above that hole an eye, with a look of cold ferocity, which was choosing a point on his antagonist"s body to send the obedient bullet. And with unconscious arrogance, he turned on his heel, so as to present not his profile, but the whole breadth of his body.
The four seconds did not see this. Their eyes had focused on Lubimoff, the personification of death.
Time contracts and expands us, according to our emotions. Its measure and rhythm depend on the state of the human mind. Sometimes it gallops along at a dizzy rate, over the faces of clocks that seem to have gone mad; at other times, it collapses and refuses to proceed, and a thousandth of a second embraces more emotions than months and years of ordinary life. The four witnesses felt as though the hours had been paralyzed, and the sun were remaining motionless forever. Time did not exist.
"Two!" sighed Don Marcos, and it seemed to him that his lips would never cease uttering this word, as though it were composed of an infinite number of syllables.
Lewis had forgotten the existence of the Casino; he was conscious only of the present. The Captain from Bordeaux, bending forward, was leaning on his wounded foot, without feeling any pain; the other officer was swearing between his teeth, and shaking his rattan cane until it hummed.
The doctor, with professional instinct, was stooping over the surgical case that lay at his feet.
Lubimoff was going to kill him! All four were sure that he was going to kill him. An implacable expression of security, and of ferocious coolness, radiated from that man, with arm upraised, so motionless, and pitiless. The expression on his Kalmuck face was of such deep fatality, his one eye tightly shut and the other open, that they could all see an imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the pistol to the breast of the man opposite, the road that the tiny sphere of lead was going to follow with inexorable accuracy.
Proud of his superiority, the Prince postponed the moment of dealing death, with a sort of savage playfulness. He had his enemy in his claws, and could toy with him during those three months, that were as long as centuries.
In the dizzy coincidence of image whirling through his brain, he could see the Princess, his mother, beautiful and arrogant, as she was when she recounted to him as a little boy, the greatness of the Lubimoffs.
Then he saw his father, the General, somber and kindly, saying in a rough voice: "The strong man must be kind."
As he thought of his father, his pistol swerved slightly, but immediately he corrected his aim.
In his imagination a train was slowly pa.s.sing. French soldiers. He saw Castro and the insolent red-haired fellow who was offering him a seat.
Another train advanced in the opposite direction, an endless train that kept coming from the depths of the ocean. Hurrahs, whistling, dark blouses, blue collars, little caps that looked as though made of paper.
"Good afternoon, Prince!" The luminous smile of a pale Virgin: Lady Lewis with her two blind men, handsome and tragic....
His pistol fell. Above it he could see the entire body of his adversary, that obscure soldier, condemned to die before long no doubt, from wounds received in a land that was not his own, for a cause which was that of all men.
"Three!" said the Colonel.
But before he could finish the word, a shot rang out. The gra.s.s stirred at intervals along the soil as the invisible bullet ricocheted into the distance.