XXVIII
Paul Brent gave one look through the unglazed window, dropped his bundle on the path and made for the door. Half a minute ago he had been walking slowly up the Rue de Rosières with that camel’s hump of a bundle on his back, feeling fagged and ready for a rest, but there was no tiredness about the man who went in to rescue his mate.
When Brent stormed in, overturning the chair that had stood against the door, he found Bibi waiting for him like a bear with its paws ready to rip. The overturned chair lay between them, its legs in the air as though it were shouting a ridiculous protest and trying to keep these two wild men apart. Manon had slipped away and was leaning against the dresser, her dress torn open at the throat, her eyes swimming black in a dead white face.
Brent and Bibi looked at each other. There was nothing to be said, nothing that words could express or satisfy. Then Bibi pushed the chair aside with a sweep of a big foot, and the two men rushed in.
Bibi could box a little, but there was no science in that fight; it was just a savage rough and tumble. The Frenchman was a head taller than Paul, heavier, and longer in the arms. He could have floored Brent at the first punch had the affair been less of a whirlwind. Paul went in bull-headed, smothered a smash at his face, and ducking, got his arms round Bibi’s body. He had the under-grip and was shorter and stockier than the Frenchman, and he rushed Bibi against the table, heaved him over and got on top.
Freeing his right hand, he tried for Louis Blanc’s throat, but in mere animal strength he was no match for this great stallion who had always boasted that he had the legs of a horse. Bibi gripped Paul round the middle. His legs wrapped themselves round Brent’s; he heaved, twisted, rolled Paul on his side. They remained like that for a moment, Bibi jerking his lean throat away from the grip of Paul’s right hand. Then Bibi gave another twist. He came up and had Brent under him, his jaw digging into Paul’s throat, and so close that his own throat was guarded.
“Voilà!”
Manon saw the smear of satisfaction on his face, and her heart sickened. She had stood aside, watching, till she saw that Bibi had her man pinned under his big body. She picked up a knife from the dresser and came forward.
“Let go.”
Bibi glanced up, showing his teeth, and that momentary slackening of his attention gave Brent a chance. He got one foot round the leg of the table, and managed to roll Bibi to one side. They had been near the edge of the table and they fell, Brent uppermost, Bibi’s head striking the tiled floor.
Brent broke free and stood up, panting. He saw that he would have to keep the fighting open, the beast was too strong for him at close quarters. He jerked a glance at Manon.
“Run, get out of the room.”
She tried to force the knife on him, but Brent’s rage would have none of it. He was not ripe yet for a clutch at any sort of weapon. Bibi, still giddy, was scrambling up, his mouth and chin all slaver. Brent rushed at him, and struck hard and straight with a workman’s arm and fist, and Bibi went back, knees sagging, his feet paddling like the feet of a duck. Brent swung again, missed, fell against the Frenchman and was shoved back with the flat of the hand in his face. Brent staggered against the table, hung there a moment, and went in again like a game dog that has been rolled over but not hurt. But Bibi had recovered his balance and had had a second in which to think. As Brent came at him he lashed out with his right foot, a full, swinging, upward kick that caught Paul in the stomach.
Brent’s face went the colour of clay. His mouth gaped. The kick had sent him reeling down the room. He seemed to bend over himself, to double up in the middle. He fell in the corner, turned over, writhing, and lay face downwards, legs quivering. He was conscious of nothing but a knot of agony in his stomach, a vast nausea, a desire to vomit.
Bibi stood and stared. His shoulders drooped a little, and his head was none too steady, but he appeared to perk up into sudden arrogance like a big, triumphant bird. He flapped his arms, opened his mouth, and the laugh that came from it was like a crow.
“That’s burst the balloon,” he said.
Then he became conscious of Manon. She was standing between him and Brent, but a little to one side, her face white and stiff with a vague, shocked wonder. She seemed to hesitate, her impulse stooping towards the man who now lay huddled in the corner.
Suddenly she turned on Bibi. Her lips were thin, bloodless; she looked starved, but in her eyes there was something indescribable, a facing of the ultimate vileness of Bibi’s strength, a defiance of physical defeat.
“Yes, and what next?”
Bibi seemed to rear on his haunches, his hands stuck in his pockets.
“Your fellow is thrashed. He is no good, is he? I can take what I want, my dear. What do you say?”
She hung her head as though beaten, her wits struggling against a sense of helplessness.
“And all this happens, because a silly ruin is blown down by the wind.”
“You got in my way, both of you.”
“We were here, that’s all. Haven’t you any decent feeling?”
Bibi looked at her with flat eyes that gloated. The physical rage was still strong in him, and he was taking his triumph.
“You wouldn’t have me. You shan’t have him. I can finish with him presently, and then I’ll finish with you.”
“There are the gendarmes,” she said.
Bibi splurged.
“Rubbish! We’re in the wilderness, wild man’s land. I can do what I please. That fellow got in my way, and I have kicked his belly in. Who’s to know if——”
She shuddered. She was looking at Paul, and suddenly she saw his hand move as though making a sign. Her eyes swept back to Bibi; he was watching her; he had not seen.
“You have beaten him; is that not enough?”
“If I get what I want for it.”
“Be reasonable.”
“Drop that knife,” he said; “you have still got it behind your back.”
She let it fall on the floor. She wanted to keep Bibi talking to hold him off.
And Brent lay there, listening. His strength was coming back; he had been sick, and the pain had died to an ache of the muscles. His rage was returning, a cold rage that lay low and was cunning. He was up against savagery, a beast who had to be fought with the methods of a beast. Right down in the core of his brain was the thought that he had got to beat Bibi, even if he killed him. That kick had brought Brent down into the primitive trough; there were no rules, no nicenesses, no points of honour in a savage scramble with a man like Louis Blanc.
He listened. Manon was talking, talking for time. He loved Manon, and his love was a rage.
“Paul is dying,” he heard her say.
Bibi shrugged.
“He’s quiet, anyway.”
Brent moved slightly, groaned; but his body was stiffening like a spring. If only he had some weapon! His right hand went out slowly, gropingly, into the corner, and touched something smooth and cold. It was an empty wine-bottle, the bottle that he, Manon, and old Durand had emptied a few days ago. He gripped the neck of it, braced himself, his left arm pressed against the wall.
He was on his feet before Bibi moved. A wooden chair stood against the wall close to where Brent had been lying, and as the Frenchman rushed in, Paul grabbed the chair and swung it at Bibi’s feet. It tripped him, nearly brought him down, and as he hung there, pawing the air to get his balance, Brent smashed at his head with the empty bottle. It broke, leaving the neck a jagged end in Paul’s hand.
Bibi was down over the chair. He made a grab at Brent and caught the front of his coat; his face was upturned and Paul struck at it with that dagger of glass. He saw Bibi’s face change like a grotesque mask; the mouth opened, the eyes closed, the forehead was a knot of anguish. He uttered a cry, and began to claw at Brent like a beast gone mad. Paul struck him again, and wrenched free, leaving a piece of his coat in one of Bibi’s paws.
Bibi was on his feet now, his face a red stream. He groped, made a rush, and stumbled over the chair, and Brent realized that the man was blind. The glass had entered one eye, and the other was full of blood.
He slipped round the centre table, with a glance at Manon who had run to the door; he made a sign to her, a sign that she understood.
Bibi mopped his eyes with his fists. The hideousness of him was a thing Brent never forgot. And the beast was dangerous, agonized with pain and the rage of its half blindness. He blundered against the dresser, and brought half the crockery clattering to the floor. And suddenly he seemed to get a glimpse of Brent through the red fog of his own blood, and he charged, arms swinging. Paul slewed the table round, but Bibi lunged forward over it, and got a grip of Brent’s coat.
Paul tore free, striking at Bibi’s arm. He had to keep away from those ferocious and clawing hands, and he knew it, but Bibi was blind again, and raising himself up from his sprawling position on the table.
“Paul——”
Manon had come back, and she carried the short iron crow-bar in her hand that Brent had used in dismantling the huts.
“Keep out,” he said hoarsely, “it’s too foul, this.”
She went, after giving him that bar of iron.
Bibi was shaking his head like a dog just out of the water. His foot touched something on the floor—the knife that Manon had dropped; he groped for it, and stood up. He had begun to curse, calling Brent every foul thing under the sun, and he kept on cursing as he felt his way forward. There was cunning in Bibi. He fumbled at the table, seeing Paul dimly through a red mist, and suddenly he vaulted on to the table and made a scrambling rush at Brent.
Brent swung at the upraised arm. The bar caught the forearm bones about two inches above the wrist, and he heard them crack. The knife fell; Bibi’s hand sagged over like the absurd stuffed hand of a dummy. But Brent’s gorge was rising over this filthy scramble, this savagery of animals in a cage. He steadied himself, brought the bar down over Bibi’s head, and saw him crumple to the floor.
Brent stood, staring. He felt sick, unsteady, a man who had got up to the neck in some foul ditch. There was no exultation in him, yet no pity. He had downed a mad beast, and he was grim and cautious.
He bent down and pulled Bibi against the wall. He did not think there was any more fight in Louis Blanc, but he took no risks. Up-ending the table, he lowered one end of it on to Bibi’s legs, and loaded the arm-chair on to the table. That would prevent a man who was playing ’possum from getting up too quickly.
“It’s all over, thank God.”
She came in to him, an impetuous passionate figure, arms spread, eyes alight.
“Oh, my Paul!”
Her emotion was like a flood of rain, a perfume, some softening human passion after those moments of savagery and bloody sweat. She ran to Brent and Paul caught her. Her head was on his shoulder; she trembled; she clutched him with tender hands; her body seemed to warm itself against his.
“Oh, my Paul, we are saved!”
“Ma chérie.”
Then she broke down, and with a passion that went to Paul’s heart. He was human once more, a decent, gentle fellow; the beast was dead; her tears seemed to cleanse him.
“It was my fault, my foolishness. I left the pistol lying by the window, and he must have been watching. He threw it across the street into the ruins. It need never have happened.”
Brent held her head in the hollow of one hand, and looked down into her wet face.
“Well, it has happened. Perhaps it was better that it should happen, once and for all.”
“Is he dead?”
Paul glanced over one shoulder at Bibi, and his eyes hardened.
“No, but he has all he can carry, one eye gone, and a broken wrist.”
Manon was feeling in the pocket of her apron, and she showed Paul the pistol that Bibi had thrown into the ruins. “I ran across a moment ago, and I had good luck. I found it almost at once. Keep it.” Brent slipped the pistol into his pocket, and discovered that Manon’s face seemed growing dim. He could not feel his feet; his knees shook; he was exhausted, and Manon’s tears and clinging hands had exhausted him still further. This flare of emotion and the exultation of it had left him faint.
“Ma chérie, I’m done up.”
She had felt his weariness almost before he had begun to tremble, and she became the little woman who had no more use for tears. He staggered as she helped him towards the table by the window. He seemed to collapse on it, bending his head till his forehead touched the wood.
“Oh, you are hurt!”
“Something to drink,” he said.
She ran to the cupboard and brought back a bottle half full of red wine, and sitting on the table, she raised Paul and held his head against her shoulder. It made her think of giving a sick child its drink, and an indefinable tenderness stirred in her. She held the bottle to his lips, letting him drink a little at a time.
“That’s better,” he said as the wine warmed him and put a new flick into his heart; “I could eat something.”
Her shoes crunched on the broken crockery as she searched in the cupboard for food. She brought him a slice of cold meat, and some bread and cheese, and Paul ate—while she sat beside him. And suddenly they seemed to become conscious of the outer world, of a rich sunset, of a stream of golden light, and the sound of a blackbird singing. A thrill of joy, of mystery, ran through both of them. They looked into each other’s eyes, and kissed.