"That's right; you let me take charge of this thing, boy. I'll do it up in ship-shape." He let his hand drop with rough affection on Sargent's shoulder. "It's mighty lucky I'm going to be here for two weeks. My boilers are out of fix and I'm tied up repairs. Let me know when you get the challenge and I'll help you fix the whole thing. I know all about how these things are done. Now, don't go back on me, and think you ought to ask a younger fellow, for if anything should happen to you and I had to take your place, there ain't a living soul dependent on me."
Sargent rose without a word. Then, turning suddenly, he went out of the room and down the steps, followed by the old fellow, who still held his arm in a firm grasp. Stopping when they had reached the pavement, the Captain glanced once more at the young fellow's face, his twinkling eyes beaming affectionately from their thousand encircling wrinkles.
"Who'd 'a' thought when we parted on the boat that day, that we'd meet in a mix-up like this? I kind a' felt all along that you were going to make your name. I can size up a promising youngster every time. Just to think of it!" and he ended with a slap on Sargent's shoulder. "Good-bye, and don't forget," he lowered his voice confidentially, "I'm going to be your second. D'you hear? Even if you didn't ask me. It's all of my own choosing."
CHAPTER III
A DEMAND OF HONOUR
The balmy twilight had softened into night as Sargent walked away from the tavern, and in the sudden privacy of the darkness the diverting influence of the old Captain's personality faded, and all the details of his encounter with Jervais returned to him with an added intensity.
Again, as he felt the moment he struck Jervais, there came to him a sensation of burning alive under the insult—the insult that he could not repudiate. The blood rushed to his head and pounded like a great firing of artillery, and when he had crossed the street from the tavern, and struck into a deserted thoroughfare, he leaned against a fence to keep from falling, for the mental agony had brought with it a keen sense of physical weakness. Why was this curse of physical deformity to follow him always! Was it some punishment of God's that was to be eternal? The saner forces of his nature, the gentle influences of his early training, the memories which had so far kept him pure and noble, receded under this sudden unloosening of the resentment against his infirmity which he had always forced himself to subdue. With this unchaining of all restraint, he became for the moment another creature. Barbaric instincts came to life, and he felt the thrill of a discoverer at finding such characteristics in his possession.
Then, out of the swirling ensemble, came one thought that quickly chained everything else into submission—a determination to meet Jervais in the trial of Phelps, to oppose him, to defeat him, to bring him to an inexorable failure before the Court, to make his fall so great that he would be robbed even of any desire for future honours: That would be his revenge. Afterward, he would not care what happened in the duel; nothing would matter after he had fully tasted the sweetness of his revenge. So completely had he sunk under the obsession of this new line of thought that when he entered Judge Houston's unlighted library a few minutes later, the metamorphosis showed in every line of his features.
He spoke no word of greeting, only grasped the extended hand and looked into the kind eyes of the old gentleman with fixed intensity.
"Was the case you meant, the prosecution of Phelps?"