“What!” cried Thurot, “after all my lessons! And this Bonnat a crab too! Fie! M. Paul. And what an he pricks a little? a man's the better for some iron in his system now and then. Come, come, pass down these foils, my lord, and I shall supple the arms of our Paul.”
We had a little exercise, and then I went to bed. The two sat in my room, and smoked and talked till late in the night, while I pretended to be fast asleep. But so far from sleep was I, that I could hear their watches ticking in their fobs. Some savagery, some fearful want of soul in them, as evidenced by their conversation, horrified me. It was no great matter that I was to risk my life upon a drunkard's folly, but for the first time since I had come into the port of Dunkerque, and knew these men beside my bed, there intruded a fiery sense of alienation. It seemed a dream—a dreadful dream, that I should be lying in a foreign land, upon the eve, perhaps, of my own death or of another manslaughter, and in a correspondence with two such worldly men as those that sat there recalling combats innumerable with never a thought of the ultimate fearful retribution. Compared with this close room, where fumed the wine and weed, and men with never a tie domestic were paying away their lives in the small change of trivial pleasures, how noble and august seemed our old life upon the moors!
When they were gone I fell asleep and slept without a break till Thurot's fingers drummed reveille on my door. I jumped into the sunshine of a lovely day that streamed into the room, soused my head in water and in a little stood upon the street with my companion.
“Bon matin, Paul!” he cried cheerfully. “Faith, you sleep sur les deux oreilles, and we must be marching briskly to be at M. Bonnat's rendezvous at eight o'clock.”
We went through the town and out upon its edge at the Calais road. The sky was blue like another sea; the sea itself was all unvexed by wave; a sweeter day for slaughtering would pass the wit of man to fancy. Thurot hummed an air as he walked along the street, but I was busy thinking of another morning in Scotland, when I got a bitter lesson I now seemed scandalously soon to have forgotten. By-and-by we came to the inn. It stood by itself upon the roadside, with a couple of workmen sitting on a bench in front dipping their morning crusts in a common jug of wine. Thurot entered and made some inquiry; came out radiant. “Monsieur is not going to disappoint us, as I feared,” said he; and led me quickly behind the auberge. We passed through the yard, where a servant-girl scoured pots and pans and sang the while as if the world were wholly pleasant in that sunshine; we crossed a tiny rivulet upon a rotten plank and found ourselves in an orchard. Great old trees stood silent in the finest foggy grass, their boughs all bursting out into blossom, and the air scent-thick-ened; everywhere the birds were busy; it seemed a world of piping song. I thought to myself there could be no more incongruous place nor season for our duelling, and it was with half a gladness I looked around the orchard, finding no one there.
“Bah! our good Bonnat's gone!” cried Thurot, vastly chagrined and tugging at his watch. “That comes of being five minutes too late, and I cannot, by my faith, compliment the gentleman upon his eagerness to meet you.”
I was mistaken but for a second; then I spied my fiery friend of the previous evening lying on his back beneath the oldest of the trees, his hat tilted over his eyes, as if he had meant to snatch a little sleep in spite of the dazzling sunshine. He rose to his feet on our approach, swept off his hat courteously, and hailed Thurot by name.
“What, you, Antoine! I am ravished! For, look you, the devil's in all my friends that I can get none of them to move a step at this hour of the morning, and I have had to come to M. Greig without a second. Had I known his friend was Captain Thurot I should not have vexed myself. Doubtless M. Greig has no objection to my entrusting my interests as well as his own in the hands of M. le Capitaine?”
I bowed my assent. Captain Thurot cast a somewhat cold and unsatisfied eye upon the ruffler, protesting the thing was unusual.
Bonnat smiled and shrugged his shoulders, put off his coat with much deliberation, and took up his place upon the sward, where I soon followed him.