"Stand back, Sarde. I don't like your perfume. No, the question, my good man, is whether you loose this woman—"
"Because—you—"
A little sound caught my ear from round the corner, and at first I whistled Three Blind Mice lest Sarde should hear it. But that seemed unfair. For a moment I had to think, scratching my head with Sarde's gun. Then I jammed it into my belt, bolstered my own revolver and picked up the ax.
"Look here, Sarde," I had to explain, "it's deuced awkward, but I heard your—ahem—good lady listening round the corner. I didn't mean to give you away, old chap. Excuse my country manners. You see she's found out she's not your wife. She'll interfere now; she'll spoil our fight. Suppose we move, eh? We'll go to the back of the fort. Come on, you've got to. By your left, quick march—left—left—left, right, left—and if you hail the bastion, I'll drop you! Left—left—you need a setting up drill, Sarde. Left, turn. I know you don't want to come, so you needn't explain. Left—left—left, right, left. There. Halt! About turn! Stand at—ease. Stand easy."
I set the ax down against the curtain wall, thinking, I remember, that it must be a deuced big bonfire they were having inside the fort. The sniping was a nuisance here at the back, and one bullet splashed between us. Poor Sarde was convinced, I suppose, that a dangerous lunatic had best be humored. He was getting patient, too.
"I guess," he remarked quite affably, "you mean to murder me, eh?"
"Certainly not. Don't be silly. Will you release this woman? Yes or no?"
He wanted to argue the point, to keep me in argument until somebody came to his rescue. He had to be roused from such dreams pronto.
"All right," said I, "you needn't get excited. You see I dislike you, Sarde. I take exception to the shape of your feet, you mule-foaled outrage on nature's modesty; you bandy-legged, stridulating, peevish, pop-eyed anachronism; you supercilious, illegitimate, high-bounding, beef-faced, misdirected, spatch-cocked swab of erring parents! You don't seem really to understand me even now. Let me explain."
I whipped one of my mitts gently, swiftly across his stupid face, and stood back to see how he liked it. I certainly had done my best for him, and he was obliged to clench his teeth to steady his rasping voice, hissing staccato: