"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.