The Moco had whipped the knife from the sheath in his belt. Both men wore knives, but the Ponantaise had not drawn his. He stood with his arms folded across his immense chest, literally as though he were nursing his wrath.
“It is well known,” said Yves, his eye on the knife, “that a Moco and a woman can only fight with their claws and tongue.”
Gaspard dropped the knife; then he stooped and picked it up as if to replace it in his belt; he seemed half mad with rage and not to know what he was doing.
That was the moment of his life; the next he might have replaced the knife in its sheath and all would have been well, had not Yves, whose anger had suddenly passed from his control, spat at the Moco a word.
A word of one syllable, one of those dead rats of language that these men fling at one another in jest, but when spoken in anger are worse than a blow.
The Moco flung himself back as though a snake had struck at him, then the knife in his hand flashed through the air and Yves was on his back on the sand kicking and coughing and whistling at the sky.
The knife had just touched the jugular vein in his neck; the air rushing into the vein made the whistling noise, but Gaspard knew nothing of this. He strode up to the body of his companion with fists clenched, prepared for battle, and certain that his antagonist would spring to his feet and face him.
Then he saw that Yves was dying. Dying of nothing, apparently, for the knife was on the sand almost unstained and the stricken man shewed no wound to speak of, just a scratch on the neck from which the black blood oozed in froth.
Had Gaspard raised his eyes to the west he would have seen that the great sun was now cut in half by the sea, dying in a scene of splendour indescribable, but he saw nothing, nothing, but the face of Yves.
For a moment he stood, the last fiery rays of the sun casting his shadow far away along the sand. Then he was kneeling by the body, shaking it by the arm, calling upon it to wake up—to come to life!