There it was suddenly arrested, and for a long moment it was held there poised, death itself, menacing and imminent. And Lord Rotherby, not daring to move, rooted where he stood, looked with fascinated eyes along that shimmering blade into two gleaming eyes behind it that seemed to watch him with a solemnity that was grim to the point of mockery.
Time and the world stood still, or were annihilated in that moment for the man who waited.
High in the blue overhead a lark was pouring out its song; but his lordship heard it not. He heard nothing, he was conscious of nothing but that gleaming sword and those gleaming eyes behind it.
Then a voice—the voice of his antagonist—broke the silence. “Is more needed?” it asked, and without waiting for a reply, Mr. Caryll lowered his blade and drew himself upright. “Let this suffice,” he said. “To take your life would be to deprive you of the means of profiting by this lesson.”
It seemed to Rotherby as if he were awaking from a trance. The world resumed its way. He breathed again, and straightened himself, too, from the arrested attitude of his last lunge. Rage welled up from his black soul; a crimson flood swept into his pallid cheeks; his eyes rolled and blazed with the fury of the mad.
Mr. Caryll moved away. In that quiet voice of his: “Take up your sword,” he said to the vanquished, over his shoulder.
Wharton and Gascoigne moved towards him, without words to express the amazement that still held Rotherby glared an instant longer without moving. Then, doing as Mr. Caryll had bidden him, he stooped to recover his blade. A moment he held it, looking after his departing adversary; then with swift, silent stealth he sprang to follow. His fell intent was written on his face.
Falgate gasped—a helpless fool—while Mainwaring hurled himself forward to prevent the thing he saw impended. Too late. Even as he flung out his hands to grapple with his lordship, Rotherby's arm drove straight before him and sent his sword through the undefended back of Mr. Caryll.
All that Mr. Caryll realized at first was that he had been struck a blow between the shoulder blades; and then, ere he could turn to inquire into the cause, he was amazed to see some three inches of steel come through his shirt in front. The next instant an exquisite, burning, searing pain went through and through him as the blade was being withdrawn. He coughed and swayed, then hurtled sideways into the arms of Major Gascoigne. His senses swam. The turf heaved and rolled as if an earthquake moved it; the houses fronting the square and the trees immediately before him leaped and danced as if suddenly launched into grotesque animation, while about him swirled a wild, incoherent noise of voices, rising and falling, now loud, now silent, and reaching him through a murmuring hum that surged about his ears until it shut out all else and consciousness deserted him.
Around him, meanwhile, a wild scene was toward.