Lord Ashley perceived the look; there was no mistaking its mingled horror and fascinated fear. Abruptly he turned to ascertain its cause.
There within a few feet of him, with pallid features so distorted with rage as to be scarcely human, tall and majestic, the very embodiment of fury, his eyes ablaze with the sullen fires of vengeance, stood Captain Stanley Mortimer. A situation releasing him from his promise—the question of life or death which alone permitted him to cross the threshold of that room—had arisen. He now stood freed from his pledge.
For a moment the two men faced each other, glaring into each other’s eyes. Then the torrent of wrath surging within Mortimer found an outlet in words.
“Scoundrel! Liar!” he hissed between his set teeth.
“What!” cried Lord Ashley, his anger kindling, as fire kindles amid straw. “You dare to apply those epithets to me—the King’s Chancellor!”
“It is as man to man that we now speak,” retorted Mortimer, struggling with his rage. “Take your sword and defend your life!” He pointed across the apartment and through the open doorway of Lord Ashley’s private bureau. Against the wall, amid a panoply of arms, could be seen hanging the sword which the Chancellor had used during the earlier days of the Russian war.
“I refuse to fight you,” said Lord Ashley. “I shall summon the guard and have you returned to the confinement from which you have escaped. Before you can claim the right to cross swords as an equal, you must first clear yourself of the stigma of treason which at present defiles you!”
“You refuse!” retorted Mortimer, with a gesture of contempt. “Your refusal will avail you little. I will throttle you to death where you stand. What!” he continued, with biting sarcasm, “can it be possible that the uniform of the Guards has at one time covered the breast of a liar, a traducer and a—coward!”
As this final word left Mortimer’s lips, Lord Ashley’s face in turn became suffused with rage. With all the faults, even crimes into which his ambition had led him in the course of his pyramidal career, one virtue was yet left him, that of physical courage. With a snarl of rage, he turned sharply and bounded across the room to where his sword hung. Back he ran, drawing the weapon and flinging the scabbard to one side as he advanced on Mortimer, awaiting him with drawn blade and the light of battle in his eyes. Crouched in one corner of the divan, moaning and hysterical, lay Dorothy.
The swords crossed with a clash. Mortimer was widely famed in the service for his skill as a swordsman, but upon this occasion he was fairly matched, and rarely could there have been seen a finer exhibition of swordsmanship. There were lightning feints and thrusts and parries, brilliant grand assaults and equally brilliant defenses upon either side. The black eyes of Ashley glared into the blue eyes of Mortimer, and each pair of eyes flashed forth the murder which was in the hearts behind them. Backward and forward they advanced and retreated, feinting and thrusting, slashing and parrying. At first, the rage which possessed Mortimer had rendered him less cool and wary than was to be desired, and so placed him at a slight disadvantage. Twice Ashley managed to touch lightly and these wounds, slight as they were, served as a vent for Mortimer’s overwrought feelings and lent to him, in some degree, the necessary coolness and caution. He could feel the blood trickling down his sleeve, as he skillfully parried a fierce assault. The tingling of the wounds in arm and shoulder came pleasurably to his overwrought spirit. Suddenly he feinted toward the neck. Up flew Ashley’s weapon in defense. Then, swift as a shaft of light, Mortimer’s sword-arm shot out in a straight and deadly thrust. It passed just under Ashley’s guard, and the point of Mortimer’s sword went home just below the median line. Such was the force and fury of the thrust that Mortimer’s blade ran through to the hilt. With an upward fling of the arms, Ashley crashed backward to the floor, in a heap.