Charles Lever - Tom Burke Of Ours, Volume II

In an instant I was on my feet. Nothing can combat drowsiness like the sense of fear; and I became perfectly awake in a moment. Examining the room with caution, I found everything in the same state as I had left it, save the door and the missing pistol. The granary alone, then, could be the shelter of the invader, whoever he might be. What was to be done? I was totally unprovided with light, save what the fire afforded; and even were it otherwise, I should expose myself by carrying one, long before I could hope to detect a concealed enemy. The best plan I could hit upon seemed to secure the door once more; and then, placing myself in such a position as not to be commanded by it again, to wait for morning patiently. This then, I did at once; and having examined my remaining pistol, and found the charge and priming all safe, I drew my sabre, and sat down between the door and the window, but so that it should open against me.

Few sensations are more acutely painful than the exercise of the hearing when pushed to intensity. The unceasing effort to catch the slightest sound soon becomes fatigue, and as the organ grows weary, the mental anxiety grows more acute; and then begins a struggle between the failing sense and the excited brain. The spectral images of the eye in fever are not one half so terrible as the strange discordant tones that jar upon the tympanum in such a state as this. Each inanimate object seems endowed with its own power of voice, and whispering noises come stealing through the dead silence of midnight.

In this state of almost frenzied anxiety I sat long, – my eyes turned towards the door, which oftentimes I fancied I could perceive to move. At length the thought occurred to me, that by affecting sleep, if any one lay concealed within whose object was to enter the room, this would probably induce him.

I had not long to wait for the success of my scheme. The long-drawn breathing of my seeming slumber was not continued for more than a few minutes, when I saw the door slowly, almost imperceptibly, move. At first it stirred inch by inch; then gradually it opened wider and wider till it met the obstacle of the chair. There now came a pause of several seconds, during which it demanded all my efforts to sustain my part, – the throbbing at my throat and temples increasing almost beyond endurance, and the impulse to dash forward, and flinging wide the door, confront my enemy, being nearly too much for my resistance. Again it moved noiselessly as before; and then a hand stole out, and, laying hold of the chair, pushed it slowly backwards. The gray light of the breaking day fell upon the spot, and I could see that the cuff of the coat was laced with gold.

This time my anxiety became intense. Another second or two and I should be engaged in the conflict, – I knew not against how many. I clutched my sabre more fairly in my grasp, as my breathing grew thicker and shorter. The chair still continued to slide silently into the room, and already the arm of the man within protruded. Now was the moment, or never; and with a spring, I threw myself on it, and, pinioning the wrist in my hands, held it down upon the floor while I opposed my weight against the door.

Quick as lightning the other hand appeared, armed with a pistol; and I had but a moment to crouch my head nearly to the ground when a bullet whizzed past and smashed through the window behind me, while with a crash the frail door gave way to a strong push, and a man sprang fiercely forward to seize me by the throat. Jumping backward, I recovered my feet; but before I could raise my pistol he made a spring at me, and we both rolled together on the floor. On the pistol both our hands met, and the struggle was for the weapon.

Twice was it pointed at my heart; but my hand held the lock, and not all his efforts could unclasp it. At last I freed my right hand from the sword-knot of my sabre, and striking him with my clenched knuckles on the forehead, threw him back. His grasp relaxed at the instant, and I wrenched the pistol from his fingers, and placed the muzzle against his chest.

Another second and he would have rolled a corpse before me, when, to my horror and amazement, I saw in my antagonist my once friend, Henri de Beauvais . I flung the weapon from me, as I cried out, “De Beauvais, forgive me! forgive me!”

A deathly paleness came over his features; his eyes grew glazed and filmy, and with a low groan he fell fainting on the floor. I bathed his temples with water; I moistened his pale lips; I rubbed his clammy fingers. But it was long before he rallied; and when he did come to himself and looked up, he closed his eyes again, as though the sight of me was worse than death itself.

“Come, Henri!” said I, “a cup of wine, my friend, and you will be better presently. Thank God, this has not ended as it might.”

He raised his eyes towards me, but with a look of proud and unforgiving sternness, while he uttered not a word.

“It is unfair to blame me, De Beauvais, for this,” said I. “Once more I say, forgive me!”

His lips moved, and some sounds came forth, but I could not hear the words.

“There, there,” cried I; “it’s past and over now. Here is my hand.”

“You struck me with that hand,” said he, in a deep, distinct voice, as though every word came from the very bottom of his chest.

“And if I did, Henri, my own life was on the blow.”

“Oh that you had taken mine with it!” said he, with a bitterness I can never forget. “I am the first of my name that ever received a blow; would I were to be the last!”

“You forget, De Beauvais – ”

“No, sir; I forget nothing. Be assured, too, I never shall forget this night. With any other than yourself I should not despair of that atonement for an injury which alone can wash out such a stain; but you , – I know you well, — you will not give me this.”

“You are right, De Beauvais; I will not,” said I, calmly. “Sorry am I that even an accident should have brought us into collision. It is a mischance I feel deeply, and shall for many a day.”

“And I, sir,” cried he, as, starting up, his eyes flashed with passion and his cheek grew scarlet, – “and I, sir! – what are to be my feelings? Think you, that because I am an exile and an outcast, – forced by misfortune to wear the livery of one who is not my rightful sovereign, – that my sense of personal honor is the less, and that the mark of an insult is not as blood-stained on my conscience as ever it was?”

“Nothing but passion could blind you to the fact that there can be no insult where no intention could exist.”

“Spare me your casuistry, sir,” replied he, with an insolent wave of his hand, while he sank into a chair, and laid his head upon the table.

For an instant my temper, provoked beyond endurance, was about to give way, when I perceived that a handkerchief was bound tightly around his leg above the knee, where a great stain of blood marked his trouser. The thought of his being wounded banished every particle of resentment, and laying my hand on his shoulder, I said, —

“De Beauvais, I know not one but yourself to whom I would three times say, forgive me. But we were friends once, when we were both happier. For the sake of him who is no more, – poor Charles de Meudon – ”

“A traitor, sir, – a base traitor to the king of his fathers!”

“This I will not endure!” said I, passionately. “No one shall dare – ”

“Dare!”

“Ay, dare, sir! – such was the word. To asperse the memory of one like him is to dare that which no man can, with truth and honor.”

“Come, sir, I’m ready,” said Be Beauvais, rising, and pointing to the door, “Sortons!”

No one who has not heard that one word pronounced by the lips of a Frenchman can conceive how much of savage enmity and deadly purpose it implies. It is the challenge which, if unaccepted, stamps cowardice forever on the man who declines it: from that hour all equality ceases between those whom a combat had placed on the same footing.