“Not a word,” was the angry answer, “instantly defend yourself. If you refuse, I will shoot you where you stand;” so saying he advanced a step towards the table.
Lord Bellefield, who had risen during the last speech, slowly followed his example, casting, as he did so, a scrutinising look round the apartment, and especially towards the window; the action did not escape Hardy’s quick sight.
“Your search is useless,” he said, smiling contemptuously. “Were you here alone, with proper tools at hand, and knowing how to use them to the best advantage, it would take you two hours to break out of this place. If you call ever so loudly, there is no one to hear you—my companions are half-way back to Venice by this time. You have nothing left but to overcome me, or to die the dog’s death you deserve.”
“’Tis false!” exclaimed Lord Bellefield eagerly; “my friends have succeeded in tracing me, and even now I hear the tread of soldiers in the passage—hark!”
With a gesture of surprise Hardy turned towards the door. This was all Lord Bellefield required. Springing forward, he seized the pistol nearest to him, levelled it, and with the speed of thought, fired. Looking round, Hardy perceived too late the snare that had been laid for him. As he did so, a sharp, stinging pain, followed by a sensation like the burn of a red-hot iron, passed round his left side. The ball, aimed at his heart, had struck against the handle of a clasp-knife which, sailor-fashion, he wore slung round his neck by a string, and glancing off, entered the side and passed round one of the ribs under the skin, lodging among the muscular fibres of the shoulder-blade. Furious at the cowardly stratagem to which he had so nearly fallen a victim, and half-maddened with the pain of his wound, Hardy seized the other pistol, and shouting, “Die, you infernal, treacherous scoundrel!” snapped it at his adversary; but owing to the priming being damp, the pistol rusty, or from some other unexplained cause, the cap exploded without discharging the weapon. Flinging it down with an oath, he snatched up the sword that lay nearest to him, and exclaiming, “Come on, and be ———— to you!” scarcely gave his antagonist time to follow his example, ere he attacked him furiously.
For a minute or two cut and thrust followed each other so rapidly that all seemed confusion. Then as their first fury became expended, and they fought more cautiously, Lord Bellefield perceived, to his extreme satisfaction, that he was the better swordsman of the two, Hardy having merely picked up the use of the cutlass on board a man-o’-war, while his antagonist had learned fencing amongst the other military exercises of a cavalry regiment in which, till within the last two or three years, he had held a commission. If, therefore, he could contrive to defend himself till Hardy’s fury should have in some degree worn out his strength, he trusted either to disarm his adversary, or by a well-directed thrust to rid himself of him for ever. Nor was he disappointed in this expectation; for having with some difficulty parried a furious thrust, he caught Hardy’s sword with the blade of his own weapon, and by a sudden turn of the wrist sent it flying out of his hand, leaving his enemy defenceless and at his mercy. But mercy being a quality for which his lordship was never famous, more especially when, as in the present instance, its exercise might compromise his own safety, he drew back a step to get room for his thrust, with the intention of running his opponent through the body. With the speed of lightning, Hardy perceived the only chance remaining for him, and unhesitatingly adopted it. Snatching up one of the stilettos, he rushed upon Lord Bellefield, and receiving his thrust through the fleshy part of his left arm, closed with him and buried the dagger in his heart. Uttering a sound between a gasping sob and a groan, the young nobleman staggered, raised his arm as if in the act to strike, and fell back a corpse.
Thus did the vengeance of the great God whom he had insulted by a life of selfish crime overtake this wicked man in the pride of his youth and strength, and thus in the same night were the libertine and his victim called to appear before the Judge of all the earth to answer for their deeds, whether they had done good, or whether they had done evil. For the humble penitent we may indeed sorrow, yet not as without hope; but for the impenitent sinner, cut off in the midst of crime, dying with his selfish heart untouched, his evil nature unregenerated, “there remaineth no longer any hope, but a fearful looking-for of judgment to come.”