Latterly, Wilfred, who, with equal tenacity and vigilance, had the cooler head, commenced to show by small but sure signs that he was gaining an advantage. Step by step he drew his antagonist nearer to him, and employing his favourite thrust, after a brilliant parry, touched him several times in succession. At each palpable hit the spectators gave a cheer, which evidently disturbed Argyll’s fiery temperament. He bit his lip, his brow contracted, but no token, excepting these and a burning spot on his cheek, showed the inward conflict. Suddenly he sprang forward with panther-like activity, and for one second Wilfred’s eye and hand were at fault, as, with a lightning lunge, Argyll delivered full upon his adversary’s chest a thrust, so like the real thing that, though the foil (as the spectators imagined) passed outside, the hilt of the mimic weapon rapped sharply, as if he had been run through the body. At the same moment he sank down, and was scarcely saved from falling, while Argyll, impatiently drawing back his weapon, threw it down and turned as if to leave the scene—half urged by his second—as was the successful combatant in the weird picture.
‘Why—how wonderfully our brave combatants have imitated the originals, Mr. O’Desmond?’ said Rosamond, with unfeigned admiration. ‘The Debardeur sinks slowly from the arms of his second to the ground; his sword-point strikes the earth; his comrade and the Capuchin bend over him. They act the confusion of a death-scene well. His antagonist casts down his blood-stained sword—why, it looks red—and hurries from the spot.’
‘Yes,’ O’Desmond continued, ‘everything is now concluded happily, successfully, triumphantly, may I say; it needs but, dearest Miss Effingham, that I should offer you——’ What Mr. O’Desmond was minded to offer his fair neighbour can never be known, for at that moment a shriek, so wild and despairing, rent the air, that all conversation, ordinary and extraordinary, ceased.
More astonishing still, Miss Fane sprang from her seat, and rushing into the arena with the speed of frenzy, knelt by the side of the defeated combatant, and with every endearing epithet supported his head, wringing her hands in agony as she gazed on the motionless form beside her.
O’Desmond, leaping down without a thought of his late interesting employment, gave one glance at the fallen sword, another at the fallen man, and divined the situation.
‘By ——!’ he said, ‘the button has come off the foil, and the poor boy is run through the body. He’ll be a dead man by sundown.’
‘Not so sure of that; keep the people back while I examine him,’ said Mr. Sternworth, pushing suddenly to the front. ‘Stand back!’ he cried with the voice of authority. ‘How can I tell you what’s wrong with him if you don’t give him air? Miss Fane, I entreat you to be calm.’
He lowered his voice and spoke in softened tones, for he had seen a look in Vera Fane’s face which none had ever marked there before. As she knelt by the side of the wounded man, from whose hurt the blood was pouring fast, in a bright red stream; as with passionate anxiety she gazed into his face, while her arms supported him in his death-like faint, her whole countenance betrayed the unutterable tenderness with which a woman regards her lover.
The spectators stood assembled around the ill-fated combatant. Great and general was the consternation.
The nature of the mischance—the loss of the button which guards the fencer in all exercises with the foil—was patent enough to those acquainted with small-sword practice. But a large proportion of the crowd, with no previous experience of such affairs, could with difficulty be got to believe that Argyll had not used unjustifiable means to the injury of his antagonist. These worthy people were for his being arrested and held to bail. His personal friends resented the idea. Words ran high; until indeed, at one time, it appeared as if a form of civic broil, common in the middle ages, would be revived with undesirable accuracy.