Still upright, still active, with its black soutane caught up and tucked into the sash to give free play to its limbs.
"Now, sir," came the courteous voice, "I am ready."
Something in the proud grace of bearing, the reckless contempt, made Roshan follow suit.
"The sun will be in your eyes," he said, "let us fight lengthwise to the ridge."
"We will--by and by!" came that icy voice, as the speaker, without moving, stood on guard. "We can omit the salute. If you are ready, I am."
For an instant Roshan hesitated, realizing what the life that he meant to take had been, what the man himself whom he meant to kill had been and was. The man whose figure stood out like a black shadow against the distant blue of the hills; and as he realized the fine fibre of his enemy, a sense of powerlessness to touch, to harm him, kept Roshan motionless.
"Shall I count five, and give you a start?" The question came with a shrug of the shoulders.
The taunt told. Roshan pulled himself together, and stood on guard also. But the sense of powerlessness was intolerable; he lowered his rapier for a word more--a word to raise his own self-esteem.
"I warn you," he said haughtily, "that the sun is in your eyes. That I have learnt more than you ever taught me--that this is to the death."
"It could scarcely be anything else, could it?" came the instant reply, in a voice that vibrated harshly, like a harpstring struck to its fullest, "with a dead woman between us! Engage, you devil, or I will kill you as you stand!"