"Murderer!"
"Your pupil at that, even!" gasped Roshan, "you began it!--your pupil whom you taught--curse you--"
The words failed him--he paused inarticulate--but the keen eyes and ears opposite him took in his meaning with the swift comprehension which had been Pidar Narâyan's always. A sort of contemptuous pity fought with the passion of Ninian Bruce's face.
"My pupil, certainly," he assented. "Have you come to ask me for a final lesson?"
Roshan glared at him. "You understand--you always did--that is the worst. Yes! I have come"--here he laughed wildly--"for what you taught me--fair play and no favour--and I mean to have it." In his fierce excitement he pressed closer, flourishing his rapier.
"Pardon me," came a cold, courteous voice; "I did not teach you that method of assassination, surely? I thought you desired fair play. If so, you might allow me to meet you on equal terms."
Roshan drew back with a flush from the figure which had stood its ground, which looked at him with bitter disdain. He scarcely seemed to recognize it. No wonder! For this was Ninian Bruce himself. Ninian Bruce as he might have spoken to an over-hasty antagonist in the days when he was the most reckless swordsman in Rome, when the world held him body and soul.
The years, his very priesthood, had slipped from him.
"I beg your pardon, sir!" muttered Roshan, standing aside. There was a savage satisfaction in his heart. This man was not old, the odds were equal; there was enough fire and passion here to please any opponent.
So, after a pause to lay aside the pyx--it found a strange resting-place on the blunt summit of that upright black stone--a slim, still elegant figure, divested of its priestly robings, took its stand, its back to the hills, its face to the world.