A cry of astonishment went up from the officers and the men without. They had expected to see Nic; but Nic was on his way to the horse beneath the great elm tree, and from the elm tree to the State of New York—and safety.
The men and the officers fell back as Castine and Ferrol clinched in a death struggle. Ferrol knew that his end had come. He had expected it, hoped for it. But, before the end, he wanted to kill this man, if he could. He caught Castine's head in his hands, and, with a last effort, twisted it back with a sudden jerk.
All at once, with the effort, blood spurted from his mouth into the other's face. He shivered, tottered and fell back, as Castine struck blindly into space. For a moment Ferrol swayed back and forth, stretched out his hands convulsively and gasped, trying to speak, the blood welling from his lips. His eyes were wild, anxious and yearning, his face deadly pale and covered with a cold sweat. Presently he collapsed, like a loosened bundle, upon the steps.
Castine, blinded with blood, turned round, and the light of the fire upon his open mouth made him appear to grin painfully—an involuntary grimace of terror.
At that instant a rifle shot rang out from the shrubbery, and Castine sprang from the ground and fell at Ferrol's feet. Then, with a contortive shudder, he rolled over and over the steps, and lay face downward upon the ground-dead.
A girl ran forward from the trees, with a cry, pushing her way through to Ferrol's body. Lifting up his head, she called to him in an agony of entreaty. But he made no answer.
"That's the woman who fired the shot!" said a subaltern officer excitedly. "I saw her!"
"Shut up, you fool—it was his wife!" exclaimed the young captain to whom Ferrol had given his last message for Christine.
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