"Hi, you, boy!" grinned Vorski. "You're not thinking of running away, are you? Keep your nerve, damn it! Show some pluck! Remember the conditions!"
The boy rushed forward with renewed zest; and it was the other's turn to fall back. Vorski clapped his hands, while Véronique murmured:
"It's for me that he's risking his life. The monster must have told him, 'Your mother's fate depends on you. If you win, she's saved.' And he has sworn to win. He knows that I am watching him. He guesses that I am here. He hears me. Bless you, my darling!"
It was the last phase of the duel. Véronique trembled all over, exhausted by her emotion and by the too violent alternation of hope and anguish. Once again her son lost ground and once again he leapt forward. But, in the final struggle that followed, he lost his balance and fell on his back, with his right arm caught under his body.
His adversary at once stooped, pressed his knee on the other's chest and raised his arm. The dagger gleamed in the air.
"Help! Help!" Véronique gasped, choking under her gag.
She flattened her breast against the wall, without thinking of the cords which tortured her. Her forehead was bleeding, cut by the sharp corner of the rail, and she felt that she was about to die of the death of her son. Vorski had approached and stood without moving, with a merciless look on his face.
Twenty seconds, thirty seconds passed. With his outstretched left hand, François checked his adversary's attempt. But the victorious arm sank lower and lower, the dagger descended, the point was only an inch or two from the neck.
Vorski stooped. Just then, he was behind Raynold, so that neither Raynold nor François could see him; and he was watching most attentively, as though intending to intervene at some given moment. But in whose favor would he intervene? Was it his plan to save François?
Véronique no longer breathed; her eyes were enormously dilated; she hung between life and death.