By Right of Sword

by Arthur W. Marchmont

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.