The return to his native air and his native costume, coupled with the gravity and danger of the situation, seemed to have raised him all at once from the music-hall level to the higher and nobler plane of the Tyrolese mountaineer. He looked and moved every inch a freeman—nay, more, he confronted Andreas with such haughty self-confidence that his enemy, surprised, drew back half-a-step and surveyed him critically. “That’s a very strange coincidence,” Andreas murmured, after a short pause. “It’s curious you should choose the exact moment to come when I happened to be at St Valentin.”
Franz scowled at him yet again. “You can take it how you like,” he retorted, in German, with a toss of the head in his old defiant fashion. “If you choose to think I came here to follow you and fight you, you’re at liberty to think so. I’m ready, if you are. I’ve an old cause of quarrel against you, recollect, Andreas Hausberger. You robbed me by fraud long ago of the woman I loved; you married her by force; and you’ve made her life unhappy. If I dogged you, which I haven’t done, I’d have cause enough and to spare. You remember that first night when I saw you in London, in Mrs Palmer’s box at the Harmony Theatre? Well, if it hadn’t been for the presence of the woman I loved—the woman you stole from me—that very first night, you false cur, I’d have buried my knife in you.”
Andreas drew back yet another pace. He was taller than Franz, very big and powerful. With a contemptuous look, he measured his enemy from head to foot. “Why, you couldn’t, you fool,” he answered, drawing himself up to his full height. “I never yet was afraid of you or of any man. Many’s the time I’ve turned you, drunk, out of this very room. I’ll turn you out again if you dare to speak so to me!”
He was wearing a Tyrolese hat, just like Franz’s own; he had bought it at Jenbach on his eastward route, to return, as was his wont, at each fresh visit home, to the simplicity and freedom of his native mountains. Before Franz’s very eyes he removed it from his head, and, with a sneer on his face, turned the blackcock’s feather Robbler-wise as a challenge of defiance.
No Robbler on earth could overlook such a wager of battle. Trembling with rage, Franz Lindner sprang forth, and leaped angrily towards him. His face was black as night; his brow was like thunder. He snatched the hat from Andreas’s head with a deft flank movement, and tore hastily from its band the offending emblem.
“Was kost die Feder?” he cried, in a tone of angry contempt, holding it up triumphantly before its owner’s eyes. All the west was blotted out; Franz Lindner was himself again. He was a Robbler once more, with the hot blood of his Robblerhood boiling fierce within him.
Quick as lightning, the familiar answer rang out in clear tones, “Fünf Finger und ein Griff!” Andreas brooked no such insult. “Five fingers and a grip”—he should have if he wanted them.
Before Cousin Fridolin had time to understand what was passing before his eyes, or to intervene to prevent it—in the twinkle of an eye, with extraordinary rapidity, the two men had closed, hands and arms fast locked, and were grappling with one another in a deadly struggle. Franz flung himself upon his foe like a tiger in its fury. One moment, his knife flashed high in air. Cousin Fridolin rushed forward, and strove to tear them asunder. But, before he could reach them, that gleaming blade had risen above Franz’s head and flashed down again, with unerring aim, on Andreas Hausberger’s bosom. The big man fell back heavily, both hands pressed to his heart, where black blood was oozing out in long, deep, thick gurgles.
With a sudden jerk, Franz flung down the knife he had wrenched from the wound. It stuck quivering by its point in the wooden flooring. Then he thrust his hands into his pockets, with one foot pushed forward. He clenched his teeth, and bent his head towards the dying man’s body. “I always meant to kill you,” he cried, in his gratified rage, “and, thank God and all blessed saints, to-day I’ve done it.”
Cousin Fridolin jumped forward, and bent aghast over the body. But Franz stood still, gazing on it calmly. At that moment, the door opened, and Linnet entered.