"No other man shall be if I can help it."
The clear, young masterful voice rang down the gallery. d.i.c.k slid his chair noiselessly to the side of the screen which hid him from the terrace-window, and, bending down low, peered round the edge. He saw them laughing, flushed, silhouetted against the green, distant trees.
Austin was looking at her with the light of pa.s.sion in his eyes. She looked up at him, radiant, elusive, triumphant, with parted lips.
"Please to remember we were talking of d.i.c.k."
"Confound d.i.c.k! In this he doesn"t count. I matter. And I"ll show you."
He showed her in the one and only way. She struggled for a second in his arms, and received his kiss with a little laugh. They had moved to the far lintel of the door. d.i.c.k"s world reeled red before his eyes. He stood up and held the pistol pointed. d.a.m.n him! d.a.m.n him! He would kill him. Kill him like a dog.
Some reflex motion of the brain prompted action. Feverishly he rammed a charge of powder down the pistol. Wads? A bit of the newspaper lying on the floor. Then a bullet. Then a wad rammed home. Then the cap. It was done at lightning speed. Murder, red, horrible murder blazed in his soul. d.a.m.n him! He would kill him. He started into the middle of the room, just as they walked away, and he sprang to the door and levelled the pistol.
Then reaction came. No. Not like a dog. He couldn"t shoot his brother like a dog. His arm fell helplessly at his side. He turned back again into the room, staggering and knocking himself against the cases by the walls, like a drunken man. The sweat rolled down his face. He put the pistol beside the other on the table. For some moments he stood a hulking statue, shaken as though stricken with earthquake, white-faced, white-lipped, staring, with crossed, blue eyes, at nothing. At last he recovered power of motion, drank another whiskey, and replaced bottle, syphon, and gla.s.s in the cupboard.
He found himself suddenly clear-headed, able to think. He was not in the least degree drunk. To test himself he took up a sword from the table, and, getting the right spot, balanced it on his finger. He could speak, too, as well as anybody. He turned to a long Moorish musket inlaid with gems and mother-of-pearl, and began to describe it. He was quite fluent and sensible, although his voice sounded remote in his own ears. He was satisfied. He had his nerves under control. He would go through the next hour without anyone suspecting the madness that was in his mind. He was absolutely sober and self-collected. He walked along a seam of the matting that ran the whole length of the gallery, and did not deviate from it one hair"s breadth. Now he was ready. Perfectly prepared to deliver his lecture. He sat down and picked up the newspaper, and the print was clear. "The weather still continues to be fine over the British Islands. The anti-cyclone has not yet pa.s.sed away from the Bay of Biscay...." He read the jargon through to the end. But it seemed as if it were not he who was reading, but someone else--a quiet, placid gentleman, deeply versed in the harmless science of meteorology. Where his real self was he did not know, so he toyed with the illusion.
A voice broke on his ear, coming, it seemed, from another world.
"d.i.c.k, may we come in?"
He rose, saw Katherine, Austin, and Viviette on the threshold. He invited them to enter, and shook Katherine by the hand, as if he had not met her for a long time.
Viviette danced down to the table. "Now, d.i.c.k, we"re all here. Put on your most learned, and antiquarian mariner. Ladies and gentlemen, I call on Mr. Richard Ware to deliver his interesting lecture on the ingenious instruments men have devised for butchering each other."
d.i.c.k put his hand to his head in a confused way. His real self was beginning to merge itself into that of the quiet gentleman, and there was a curious red mist before his eyes.
"Come on," cried Viviette. "Look at Katherine. Her mouth is watering for tales of bloodshed."
d.i.c.k could not remember his usual starting-point. He stared stupidly at the table for a moment; then picked up a weapon at random, and made a great effort.
"This is a Toledo sixteenth-century sword--reported to have belonged to Cosmo de Medici. You see here the "_palle_," the Medici emblem. The one next to it is a sword of the same period, only used by a meaner person.
I should prefer it, if there were any killing to be done."
He described one or two other weapons. Then, glancing over his shoulder at Austin and Viviette, who were talking in low, confidential tones a little way off, he stood stock still, and the beads of sweat gathered on his forehead. Katherine"s voice recalled his wandering wits.
"This is a cross-bow, isn"t it? The thing the Ancient Mariner shot the Albatross with."
"A cross-bow," said d.i.c.k. "The iron loop at the end was to put one"s foot into when one wanted to load it."
"And this," said Katherine, pointing to a long steel thing with a great k.n.o.b adorned with cruel spikes, "is the family mace, I suppose. I"ve seen it before, I remember."
"Yes, that"s the mace."
"What a blood-thirsty set of people you must have been!"
Austin came up with a laugh. "There"s a legend among us that once mother was left alone in the house and insisted on having this mace near her bed so as to defend herself against burglars. But why do you leave me to tell the story, d.i.c.k?"
d.i.c.k clenched his fists, and, muttering something, turned and ascended the gallery above the screen. Viviette followed him.
"You"re not doing it at all nicely. I don"t think you want to."
"Can you wonder at that?" he said hoa.r.s.ely.
Viviette played deliciously with the fire.
"Why, aren"t we intelligent enough for you?" she asked with childish innocence.
"You know what I mean."
"I haven"t the faintest idea. All I know is that you may as well be polite, at any rate."
He laughed. Ordinarily he had little sense of humour; but now he had the flames in his heart and the h.e.l.l in his throat, and red mist before his eyes.
"Oh, I"ll be polite," he growled. "By G.o.d, I"ll be polite! One may be suffering the tortures of the d.a.m.ned, but one must smirk and be polite!"
He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the first thing to hand, a helmet that stood on a case, and brought it down below the screen.
"Katherine, Viviette says I"m not delivering my lecture properly. I beg your pardon. I"m rather shy at first, but I get warmed up to my subject.
What would you like to hear about?"
Katherine exchanged a glance with Austin.
"Don"t you think we might put off the rest till another day?"
"Yes, old chap. Put it off till to-morrow. It"s your birthday, you know."
"Birthday? What"s that got to do with it? Who knows what may happen between then and now? No--no. I"m all right," he cried wildly. "You"re here, and you"ve got to listen. I"ll get into fine form presently.
Look!" he said, pointing to the helmet he was holding. "Here is a Cromwellian morion. It was picked up by an ancestor at Naseby. It has a clean cut in it. That"s where an honest gentleman"s sword found its way into the knave"s skull--the puritanical, priggish, canting knave."
He threw the helmet with a clatter on to the table as if it had been the knave"s canting head. He caught up a weapon.
"This is a partisan. All you had to do when you got it inside a man was to turn it round a bit, and the wound gaped and tore. This ta.s.sel is for catching the blood and preventing it from greasing the handle. Here"s a beauty," he went on, taking a sword from the row he had laid out for display, and holding it out for Katherine"s inspection. "One of the pets of the collection. A French duelling sword of the middle of the eighteenth century." He gave a fencer"s flourish. "Responsive to the hilts, eh? Ah! It must have been good to live in those days, when you could whip this from your side at a wrong done and have the life of the man that wronged you. The sweet morning air, the patch of green turf, shoes off--in shirt and breeches--with the eyes of the man you hate in front of you, and this glittering, beautiful, snaky thing thirsting for his heart"s blood. And then--"--he stood in tierce, left hand curved, holding in tense fierceness the eyes of an imaginary opponent--"and then a little c.l.i.tter-clatter of steel, and, suddenly--ha!--the blade disappears up to the hilt, and a great red stain comes on the shirt, and the man throws up his arms, and falls, and you"ve killed him. He"s dead!
dead! dead! Ha! what a time to live in!"
Katherine uttered a little cry of fear, and grew pale. Viviette clapped her hands.
"Bravo, d.i.c.k!"
"Bravo, d.i.c.k!" cried Austin. "Most dramatically done."
"I never knew you were such an actor," said Viviette.
d.i.c.k stood panting, his hand on the hilt of the sword, the point on the floor.
"I really do think I"ve had enough," said Katherine.
"No, not yet," he said in a thick voice. "I"ve not shown you half yet.
I"ve something much more interesting."