The Point Of Honor: A Military Tale, Page 3

refuse to come in."

  The pretty maid had opened the door. Lieutenant Feraud brushed pasther brusquely and she raised her scared, questioning eyes to LieutenantD'Hubert, who could do nothing but shrug his shoulders slightly as hefollowed with marked reluctance.

  In his room Lieutenant Feraud unhooked the clasp, flung his new dolmanon the bed, and folding his arms across his chest, turned to the otherhussar.

  "Do you imagine I am a man to submit tamely to injustice?" he inquiredin a boisterous voice.

  "Oh, do be reasonable," remonstrated Lieutenant D'Hubert.

  "I am reasonable. I am perfectly reasonable," retorted the other,ominously lowering his voice. "I can't call the general to account forhis behaviour, but you are going to answer to me for yours."

  "I can't listen to this nonsense," murmured Lieutenant D'Hubert, makinga slightly contemptuous grimace.

  "You call that nonsense. It seems to me perfectly clear. Unless youdon't understand French."

  "What on earth do you mean?"

  "I mean," screamed suddenly Lieutenant Feraud, "to cut off your ears toteach you not to disturb me, orders or no orders, when I am talking to alady."

  A profound silence followed this mad declaration--and through the openwindow Lieutenant D'Hubert heard the little birds singing sanely in thegarden. He said coldly:

  "Why! If you take that tone, of course I will hold myself at yourdisposal whenever you are at liberty to attend to this affair. But Idon't think you will cut off my ears."

  "I am going to attend to it at once," declared Lieutenant Feraud, withextreme truculence. "If you are thinking of displaying your airs andgraces to-night in Madame de Lionne's salon you are very much mistaken."

  "Really," said Lieutenant D'Hubert, who was beginning to feel irritated,"you are an impracticable sort of fellow. The general's orders tome were to put you under arrest, not to carve you into small pieces.Good-morning." Turning his back on the little Gascon who, always soberin his potations, was as though born intoxicated, with the sunshineof his wine-ripening country, the northman, who could drink hard onoccasion, but was born sober under the watery skies of Picardy, madecalmly for the door. Hearing, however, the unmistakable sound, behindhis back, of a sword drawn from the scabbard, he had no option but tostop.

  "Devil take this mad Southerner," he thought, spinning round andsurveying with composure the warlike posture of Lieutenant Feraud withthe unsheathed sword in his hand.

  "At once. At once," stuttered Feraud, beside himself.

  "You had my answer," said the other, keeping his temper very well.

  At first he had been only vexed and somewhat amused. But now his facegot clouded. He was asking himself seriously how he could manage to getaway. Obviously it was impossible to run from a man with a sword, and asto fighting him, it seemed completely out of the question.

  He waited awhile, then said exactly what was in his heart:

  "Drop this; I won't fight you now. I won't be made ridiculous."

  "Ah, you won't!" hissed the Gascon. "I suppose you prefer to be madeinfamous. Do you hear what I say?... Infamous! Infamous! Infamous!" heshrieked, raising and falling on his toes and getting very red in theface. Lieutenant D'Hubert, on the contrary, became very pale at thesound of the unsavoury word, then flushed pink to the roots of his fairhair.

  "But you can't go out to fight; you are under arrest, you lunatic," heobjected, with angry scorn.

  "There's the garden. It's big enough to lay out your long carcass in,"spluttered out Lieutenant Feraud with such ardour that somehow the angerof the cooler man subsided.

  "This is perfectly absurd," he said, glad enough to think he had found away out of it for the moment. "We will never get any of our comrades toserve as seconds. It's preposterous."

  "Seconds! Damn the seconds! We don't want any seconds. Don't you worryabout any seconds. I will send word to your friends to come and buryyou when I am done. This is no time for ceremonies. And if you wantany witnesses, I'll send word to the old girl to put her head out of awindow at the back. Stay! There's the gardener. He'll do. He's as deafas a post, but he has two eyes in his head. Come along. I will teachyou, my staff officer, that the carrying about of a general's orders isnot always child's play."

  While thus discoursing he had unbuckled his empty scabbard. He sent itflying under the bed, and, lowering the point of the sword, brushed pastthe perplexed Lieutenant D'Hubert, crying: "Follow me." Directly he hadflung open the door a faint shriek was heard, and the pretty maid, whohad been listening at the keyhole, staggered backward, putting the backsof her hands over her eyes. He didn't seem to see her, but as he wascrossing the anteroom she ran after him and seized his left arm. Heshook her off and then she rushed upon Lieutenant D'Hubert and clawed atthe sleeve of his uniform.

  "Wretched man," she sobbed despairingly. "Is this what you wanted tofind him for?"

  "Let me go," entreated Lieutenant D'Hubert, trying to disengage himselfgently. "It's like being in a madhouse," he protested with exasperation."Do let me go, I won't do him any harm."

  A fiendish laugh from Lieutenant Feraud commented that assurance. "Comealong," he cried impatiently, with a stamp of his foot.

  And Lieutenant D'Hubert did follow. He could do nothing else. But invindication of his sanity it must be recorded that as he passed outof the anteroom the notion of opening the street door and bolting outpresented itself to this brave youth, only, of course, to be instantlydismissed: for he felt sure that the other would pursue him withoutshame or compunction. And the prospect of an officer of hussars beingchased along the street by another officer of hussars with a naked swordcould not be for a moment entertained. Therefore he followed into thegarden. Behind them the girl tottered out too. With ashy lips and wild,scared eyes, she surrendered to a dreadful curiosity. She had alsoa vague notion of rushing, if need be, between Lieutenant Feraud anddeath.

  The deaf gardener, utterly unconscious of approaching footsteps, wenton watering his flowers till Lieutenant Feraud thumped him on the back.Beholding suddenly an infuriated man, flourishing a big sabre, the oldchap, trembling in all his limbs, dropped the watering pot. At onceLieutenant Feraud kicked it away with great animosity; then seizing thegardener by the throat, backed him against a tree and held him thereshouting in his ear:

  "Stay here and look on. You understand you've got to look on. Don't darebudge from the spot."

  Lieutenant D'Hubert, coming slowly down the walk, unclasped his dolmanwith undisguised reluctance. Even then, with his hand already on hissword, he hesitated to draw, till a roar "_En garde, fichtre!_ What doyou think you came here for?" and the rush of his adversary forced himto put himself as quickly as possible in a posture of defence.

  The angry clash of arms filled that prim garden, which hitherto hadknown no more warlike sound than the click of clipping shears; andpresently the upper part of an old lady's body was projected out ofa window upstairs. She flung her arms above her white cap, and beganscolding in a thin, cracked voice. The gardener remained glued to thetree looking on, his toothless mouth open in idiotic astonishment, anda little farther up the walk the pretty girl, as if held by a spell,ran to and fro on a small grass plot, wringing her hands and mutteringcrazily. She did not rush between the combatants. The onslaughts ofLieutenant Feraud were so fierce that her heart failed her.

  Lieutenant D'Hubert, his faculties concentrated upon defence, needed allhis skill and science of the sword to stop the rushes of his adversary.Twice already he had had to break ground.

  028.jpg "The angry clash of arms filled that primgarden"]

  It bothered him to feel his foothold made insecure by the round drygravel of the path rolling under the hard soles of his boots. This wasmost unsuitable ground, he thought, keeping a watchful, narrowedgaze shaded by long eyelashes upon the fiery staring eyeballs of histhick-set adversary. This absurd affair would ruin his reputation of asensible, steady, promising young officer. It would damage, at any rate,his immediate prospects and lose him the good will of his general. Theseworldl
y preoccupations were no doubt misplaced in view of the solemnityof the moment. For a duel whether regarded as a ceremony in the cult ofhonour or even when regrettably casual and reduced in its moral essenceto a distinguished form of manly sport, demands perfect singleness ofintention, a homicidal austerity of mood. On the other hand, this vividconcern for the future in a man occupied in keeping sudden death atsword's length from his breast, had not a bad effect, inasmuch as itbegan to rouse the slow anger of Lieutenant D'Hubert. Some seventyseconds had elapsed since they had crossed steel and Lieutenant D'Huberthad to break ground again in