"Come on yourself, damn you!" yelled Tom Sullivan.
"All right, Tom; I am coming. You first, my friend," said Jean, as he advanced slowly upon Tom; keeping an eye and an arm for Pamphile, who was about to take him in the rear. This time Tom, who was one of the best fighters in the parish, stood his ground; exchanged a feint or two with Jean; and then, nimbly evading a blow that should have felled him to the earth, he suddenly whirled; his body sank; his feet rose in the air, one after the other; and he delivered a furious kick at his enemy's head, the terrible savate, with which he had been known to split open an adversary's skull, and which, in the lumber woods, had won him the title of "Terror of the Gatineau." The fight would have ended then and there, but that Jean, who had been expecting the attack, swerved a trifle to one side; seized the lower foot, as it rose; and allowed Tom to fall by his own momentum on head and shoulders with such force as to drive the breath from his body and to leave him stunned upon the ground. Thus, frequently, the savate, if not successfully delivered, brings destruction to him who launches the blow.
As Tom fell, Jean received a blow at the back of the head that sent him to his knees; as he sprang to his feet he took another that made him reel; but the third blow he parried; also the fourth; and then he began to counter with such effect as to put Pamphile wholly on the defensive; and forced him back, step by step, now on the path, now trampling among the ferns, down to the stream and up the slope on the other side, until they stood upon the very spot where Pamphile, in the presence of Gabrielle, had been struck in the face and wounded in the soul.
"Here is the place. Well, Pamphile, have you had enough?"
Pamphile made no reply, but glared in futile rage, while his right hand still clutched the whip with which he had planned to take revenge.
"Ah, the little whip!" said Jean. "And you would like to strike me in the face? Well, you shall do so."
"What?" exclaimed Pamphile, in astonishment.
"I struck you in the face," said Jean, in a calm, even voice, "instead of killing you; and if it would be a satisfaction to you to strike me in return you may do it. Now--begin!"
A peculiar expression, as of a rat driven into a corner, came into the face of Pamphile, as he slowly raised the whip.
At this moment a shrill cry rang out through the woods--a woman's voice.