第47章 CHAPTER XII(2)

With that they settled down to it, Sir Terence in a rage upon which that assassin stroke had been fresh fuel; the Count cool and unhurried, delaying until the moonlight should have crept a little farther, so as to enable him to make quite sure that his stroke when delivered should be final.

Meanwhile he pressed Sir Terence towards the side where the moonlight would strike first, until they were fighting close under the windows of the residential wing, Sir Terence with his back to them, Samoval facing them. It was Fate that placed them so, the Fate that watched over Sir Terence even now when he felt his strength failing him, his sword arm turning to lead under the strain of an unwonted exercise. He knew himself beaten, realised the dexterous ease, the masterly economy of vigour and the deadly sureness of his opponent's play. He knew that he was at the mercy of Samoval; he was even beginning to wonder why the Count should delay to make an end of a situation of which he was so completely master. And then, quite suddenly, even as he was returning thanks that he had taken the precaution of putting all his affairs in order, something happened.

A light showed; it flared up suddenly, to be as suddenly extinguished, and it had its source in the window of Lady O'Moy's dressing-room, which Samoval was facing.

That flash drawing off the Count's eyes for one instant, and leaving them blinded for another, had revealed him clearly at the same time to Sir Terence. Sir Terence's blade darted in, driven by all that was left of his spent strength, and Samoval, his eyes unseeing, in that moment had fumbled widely and failed to find the other's steel until he felt it sinking through his body, searing him from breast to back.

His arms sank to his sides quite nervelessly. He uttered a faint exclamation of astonishment, almost instantly interrupted by a cough.

He swayed there a moment, the cough increasing until it choked him.

Then, suddenly limp, he pitched forward upon his face, and lay clawing and twitching at Sir Terence's feet.

Sir Terence himself, scarcely realising what had taken place, for the whole thing had happened within the time of a couple of heart-beats, stood quite still, amazed and awed, in a half-crouching attitude, looking down at the body of the fallen man. And then from above, ringing upon the deathly stillness, he caught a sibilant whisper:

"What was that? 'Sh!"

He stepped back softly, and flattened himself instinctively against the wall; thence profoundly intrigued and vaguely alarmed on several scores he peered up at the windows of his wife's room whence the sound had come, whence the sudden light had come which - as he now realised - had given him the victory in that unequal contest.

Looking up at the balcony in whose shadow he stood concealed, he saw two figures there - his wife's and another's - and at the same time he caught sight of something black that dangled from the narrow balcony, and peered more closely to discover a rope ladder.

He felt his skin roughening, bristling like a dog's; he was conscious of being cold from head to foot, as if the flow of his blood had been suddenly arrested; and a sense of sickness overcame him. And then to turn that horrible doubt of his into still more horrible certainty came a man's voice, subdued, yet not so subdued but that he recognised it for Ned Tremayne's.

"There's some one lying there. I can make out the figure."

"Don't go down! For pity's sake, come back. Come back and wait, Ned. If any one should come and find you we shall be ruined."

Thus hoarsely whispering, vibrating with terror, the voice of his wife reached O'Moy, to confirm him the unsuspecting blind cuckold that Samoval had dubbed him to his face, for which Samoval - warning the guilty pair with his last breath even as he had earlier so mockingly warned Sir Terence - had coughed up his soul on the turf of that enclosed garden.

Crouching there for a moment longer, a man bereft of movement and of reason, stood O'Moy, conscious only of pain, in an agony of mind and heart that at one and the same time froze his blood and drew the sweat from his brow.

Then he was for stepping out into the open, and, giving flow to the rage and surging violence that followed, calling down the man who had dishonoured him and slaying him there under the eyes of that trull who had brought him to this shame. But he controlled the impulse, or else Satan controlled it for him. That way, whispered the Tempter, was too straight and simple. He must think. He must have time to readjust his mind to the horrible circumstances so suddenly revealed.

Very soft and silently, keeping well within the shadow of the wall, he sidled to the door which he had left ajar. Soundlessly he pushed it open, passed in and as soundlessly closed it again. For a moment he stood leaning heavily against its timbers, his breath coming in short panting sobs. Then he steadied himself and turning, made his way down the corridor to the little study which had been fitted up for him in the residential wing, and where sometimes he worked at night. He had been writing there that evening ever since dinner, and he had quitted the room only to go to his assignation with Samoval, leaving the lamp burning on his open desk.

He opened the door, but before passing in he paused a moment, straining his ears to listen for sounds overhead. His eyes, glancing up and down, were arrested by a thin blade of light under a door at the end of the corridor. It was the door of the butler's pantry, and the line of light announced that Mullins had not yet gone to bed. At once Sir Terence understood that, knowing him to be at work, the old servant had himself remained below in case his master should want anything before retiring.