By Right of Sword

by Arthur W. Marchmont

"THAT BUTCHER, DURESCQ."

We were not by any means done with Devinsky yet, however, and I was to have striking proof of this a couple of days later. I met him in the interval as men in the same regiment are bound to meet; and I deemed it best to avoid all open rupture, seeing that he was my superior officer, and unpleasant consequences to others beside myself might result.

I told him shortly that Olga declined his offer and that it must never be renewed. He took it coolly enough, replying only that his feelings for her would never change, nor should he abandon the resolve to make her his wife. Then he made overtures of peace and apologised for what he had said. I thought it discreet to patch up a sort of treaty of mutual tolerance.

I was speaking of this to Essaieff, to whom, in common with all the mess, Devinsky's infatuation for Olga was perfectly well known, and my former second seemed particularly impressed by it. Since the duel I had seen more of him than of any other man, and I liked him. I could be with him more safely than with others, moreover, because he had seen so little of the unregenerate Alexis. Every man who had been at all intimate with my former self I now avoided altogether, because of the risk of detection—although this risk was of course diminishing with every day that passed.

"I don't like what you say, Petrovitch," said Essaieff, after he had thought it over. "I'm convinced Devinsky's a dangerous man; and if he attempts to make things up with you, depend upon it he's got some ugly reason behind."

"A reason in petticoats," said I, lightly. "A brother's a charming fellow to a man in love with the sister."

"No doubt; but he thought he was going to kill the 'charming fellow' in that duel. Why did he go away; and where did he go?"

"He didn't tell me his private business, naturally."

"Yet I'm much mistaken if it didn't in some way concern you."

"I don't see how."

"We don't see the sun at midnight, man; but that's only because there's something in the line of sight. Other people can see it clearly enough."

"Well, I don't see this sun, any way; and I'm not going to worry about it."

"Have you ever heard of Durescq? Alexandre Durescq?" he asked after a pause.

"No, never," I answered promptly, making one of those slips which it was impossible for me to avoid in my private chats. Essaieff's next words shewed me my blunder.

"My dear fellow, you must have heard of him. Durescq, the duellist. The man who has the reputation of being the best swordsman in the Russian army. The French fellow who naturalised, and clapped a 'c' into his name and cut off the tail of it to make Duresque into Durescq. Why, he was here last year, and dined with us at the mess. Devinsky brought him. You had joined us then, surely and must have been introduced by Devinsky? You must remember him."

"Oh, that Durescq!" I exclaimed, as if recalling the incident.

"'That Durescq!' There's no other for the whole Russian army," said Essaieff drily. "And if he heard you say it, he'd want an explanation quickly enough."

"I was thinking for a minute of another Duresque, Essaieff, whom I knew much better. Different sex, whose killing of men was done in a different way." I smiled as I made the equivocation.

"I met him this morning," said my companion, not noticing my remark and looking more thoughtful than before. "I wonder if Devinsky's absence has anything to do with Durescq's presence; and whether..." he paused and looked at me. "It would be a damnably ugly business; but Devinsky's not incapable of it; and so far as I know, the other man's worse than he is. Moreover, I know that they have been together in more than one very dirty affair. There are ugly items enough standing to both their debits. But this would be murder—sheer, deliberate, damnable murder, and nothing else."

I had rarely seen him so excited as he was now.

"You think Devinsky has brought this man here to do what he couldn't do himself the other morning?"

"I don't say I think it," replied Essaieff, cautiously. "I shouldn't like to think it of any man: but if I were you I'd be a bit cautious about getting into a quarrel."

"Caution be hanged," I cried. "If that's their game I'll force the pace for them. We'll have a real fight next time, Essaieff, and we'll make the thing such that one of us is bound to go under. But I'll have one condition, and one only—that Devinsky meets me first. And if I don't send him first to hell to wait for his friend or act as my avant courier, may I have the palsy."

"What a fire-devil you've turned, Alexis," said Essaief, enthusiastically. It was the first time he had used my Christian name, and it pleased me. "Even the rankers have found you out now. 'That devil Alexis,' is what they call you one to the other, since you beat their best men in leaping, and running, and staff playing. If the war comes, as like good Russians we pray it may, what a time you'll have. They'll follow you anywhere. Yes, there's shrewdness enough in your last devilment. If you insist on first killing Devinsky, Durescq will probably take back a bloodless sword to the capital."

His pithy reference to the feeling in the regiment touched my vanity on its weak spot, and gave me quite disproportionate pleasure. As we talked over this possible plan of Devinsky's I tried to get him to speak of the feeling again. It is rather a paltry confession to make; but the nick-name, 'That devil Alexis,' was exactly what I would have wished to bear.

Although Essaieff had suggested this action on the part of Devinsky, I scarcely thought it possible that he would do what we had discussed; but I had not been many minutes in the club that evening before the thing seemed not only probable, but certain; and I saw that I had a very ugly corner to turn.

Alexandre Durescq was there and I eyed him curiously. He was taller than I by an inch, but not so broad. His figure was well knit and lithe, and he moved with the air which a man gets whose sinews are of steel and are kept in perfect condition by constant and severe training. He was the type of a sinewy athlete.

His face was a most unpleasant one. The features were thin and all very long; and the thinness added to the apparent abnormal length from brow to chin. His complexion was almost Mongolian in its sallowness; his hair coal black, and his eyes, set close to his large and very prominent aquiline nose, were small but brilliant in expression and seemingly coal black in colour. Altogether a most remarkable looking man; and I was not astonished that Essaieff had been surprised when I said I had forgotten him. He was not a man to be forgotten. The expression of his face was sardonic and saturnine, and his manners and gestures were all saturated with intense self-assertiveness. He moved, looked, and spoke as though he felt that everyone was at once beneath him and afraid of him.

He was at the far end of the room when I entered, and I saw Devinsky stoop and whisper to him immediately he caught sight of me. The man turned slightly and glanced in my direction, and my instincts warned me of danger.

I would not baulk the pair; but I would not provoke the quarrel. I moved quietly about the room, chatting with one man and another; but keeping a wary eye disengaged for the two at the other end. Gradually I worked my way round to where they were, and both rose as I approached. I saw too, that Devinsky's old seconds and toadies were near and were watching me and smirking. They formed a group of three or four men who seemed to me to have intimation what was coming. They were waiting to see me "jumped."

I knew, however, that if I kept quiet, I should make the task more difficult for the pair, and thus compel Devinsky to shew his hand; and so give me the pretext I needed to force the first fight on him.

"Good evening, Petrovitch, or Lieutenant Petrovitch, I suppose I should say," said Devinsky, and the instant he spoke I could tell he had been drinking. "I think you've met my friend Captain Durescq?"

"Not yet," I said, looking straight into Devinsky's eyes with a meaning he read and didn't like.

"Is this the gentleman who is so particular in asserting his lieutenancy? Good evening, Lieutenant Petrovitch." He said this in a tone that was insufferably insolent; and as if to point the insult, the two toadies when they heard it, sniggered audibly.

Nothing could have played better into my hands. All four made an extraordinary blunder, since they shewed, before I had opened my lips, that the object was to force a quarrel; and thus the sympathies of every decent man in the place were on my side. I kept cool. I was too wary to take fire yet.

"I thought you knew Captain Durescq when he was here last year," said Devinsky. "But you may have forgotten."

"Good evening, Captain Durescq," said I, ignoring Devinsky and returning the other man's greeting. "What is the latest war news in St Petersburg?"

"Bad for those who do not like fighting," he said, looking at me in a way that turned this to a personal insult.

"But good perhaps, for those soldiers whose swords are to hire," I returned, with a smile which did not make my point less plain.

The man's eyes flashed.

"They will take the place of your friends who do not like the fighting," I added; and at this all about us grew suddenly silent.

"My friends? How do you mean?" asked Durescq stiffly.

"Those you mentioned in your first sentence. Whom else should I mean?" and I let my eye rest as if by accident on Devinsky.

"You have a singular manner of expressing yourself, Lieutenant."

"We provincials do not always copy the manners of the capital, you know," I returned in my pleasantest manner. "I think the provinces are growing more and more independent every year. We arrange our own affairs in our own way, have our own etiquette, form our own associations, and settle our own quarrels without aid from the capital."

I heard Devinsky swear softly into his moustache at this; but there was nothing for them to take hold of, though every man in the room understood what I meant; and nearly all were now listening.

"Yes, I have heard you have singular manners in the provinces. My friend here, Devinsky, has told me several curious things. I heard of one provincial for instance, who allowed himself to be insulted and browbeaten till his cowardice was almost a by-word, and it became really impossible for him to remain in the army unless he accepted the challenge he had so often refused. And then he begged, almost with tears, to get terms made; and when this was not done, he deadened his fears with drink and came to the club here like a witless fool, behaving like a drunken clown; and then at last actually went out and fought in a condition of seeming delirium. We do not have that in the capital. In St Petersburg we should have such a scabby rascal whipped on a gun."

A movement among the group of toadies shewed me how this burlesque of my conduct was appreciated there, while Devinsky was grinning boastfully.

"Did Major Devinsky tell you that?" I asked; my voice down at least two tones in my excitement, while my pulses thrilled at the insult. But outwardly I was calm.

"Yes, I think that's a pretty fair description, isn't it, Devinsky?" replied Durescq, turning coolly to the latter for confirmation. Then he turned again to me and asked:—"Why, do you recognise the description, Lieutenant Petrovitch?"

"You have not heard the whole of the story," I answered, getting the words out with difficulty between teeth I had to clench hard to keep my passion under control. "The man who was beaten in the duel left Moscow in a panic and went to St Petersburg for a purpose—that you may perhaps approve." There was now dead silence in all the room and the eyes of every man in it were rivetted on me. "The first object of the duel was that he might kill in it the man whose skill was thought to be inferior to his own, so that he might persecute with his disgusting attentions the sister of him on whom he had fixed the quarrel. Failing, he went to fetch a cleverer sword than his own to do his dirty work; and he fetched——" I paused and then my rage burst out like a volcano—"He fetched a butcher named Durescq to do butcher's work; and I, by God! won't baulk him."

With this I lost all control, and springing upon him I seized his nose and wrung it and twisted it, dragging his head from side to side in my ungovernable fury, until I nearly broke my teeth with the straining force with which I clenched them. Then raising my hand I slapped his face with a force and loudness that resounded right through the room and made every man start and wonder what would come next.

"That is from the man you say dare not fight. One last word. Before I meet the butcher, I insist on meeting the man who hired him. Lieutenant Essaieff will act for me."

With that I left the room, feeling that although I was now all but certain to be killed by Durescq I should at least die as became "that devil Alexis."