“The fool,” Herriard urged hopelessly, “had at least a chance, if a poor one. He was not butchered in cold blood.”
Gastineau shrugged.
“The fool had the satisfaction of dying with a weapon in his hand, against which advantage must be set the fact that he left behind him the reputation of not knowing how to use it. But, my good fellow, when you talk of advantage, surely you, who, when I was crippled, had such a pull over me, are not going to complain now that the tables are turned and the balance properly adjusted in the proportion of our respective intellects.”
“If,” Herriard returned, touched to justify himself, “I took advantage of your condition, it was, as you know, unwittingly.”
“I grant you that,” Gastineau assented readily. “But when the position was readjusted—for I would not have played the dog-in-the-manger—and your mistake was pointed out, you refused to correct it. You cannot deny you were warned; but it was to no purpose. It were idle to argue that the lady prefers you; that is merely an additional reason for your removal.”
He rose with an action as though to throw the end of his cigarette over the parapet, but checked it cunningly, to drop the stub of tobacco on the floor, and stamp it to atoms. Herriard understood the astuteness that meant to leave no incriminating evidence of its presence. Then Gastineau, with a passing scrutiny of the revolver, raised his eyes to Herriard’s face.
“Time is up,” he said incisively, with an ominous squaring of the jaw. “I have given you, as between man and man—I was going to say, old friends—my reasons, more sufficient, perhaps, than agreeable. After all, under the veneer of civilization, the rough, barbaric sense of self-preservation is to-day as firmly existent as ever. You have played a risky game, Herriard, and have lost it.”
He paused, looking at Herriard as though he expected him to make some reply. For a few moments the two men stood gazing into each other’s eyes; and there was death in both. The sun had sunk below the level of the massed pine-trees, and now flooded the long avenue with blood-red light. To Herriard, in that supreme moment, in the exaltation of his senses, the sounds of the forest came with abnormal distinctness. The whole affair seemed a dream, even to his, its victim’s, tantalizing helplessness. Gastineau, with all his set malignity of purpose indexed in his hateful face, seemed unreal. Herriard made a desperate effort to tell himself of his danger, of his mad folly in submitting tamely to his death like a decrepit hound. At least it was better to die in an attacking rush than passively standing still. He would accept his fate no more than its justice.
As he gathered his nerves for a spring which he knew must be into eternity, since the deadly barrel covered him steadily, pitilessly, he was surprised, so far as anything could touch him then, to see Gastineau turn half away with a curiously apprehensive change of countenance. Now or never was his chance. He gave a great leap forward to throw himself upon his enemy. Gastineau, turning quickly from what had drawn off his attention, sprang aside with a devilish gleam of combat in his eyes, and raised the revolver. He fired; but Herriard, at close quarters now, had clutched his arm, and the bullet went wide. Next moment, with a sharp jerk, Gastineau had torn himself free from the grasp, and, with a great backward spring, reached a practicable firing distance. As the revolver was swiftly brought down to the aim, and Herriard was madly throwing himself upon his death, there came, though neither of the men more than vaguely noticed it, a sound as of a leaping rush; then the angry, attacking snarl of a dog; and next instant Gastineau was flung staggering against the parapet, with the wolf-hound, Fritz’s fangs gripping his throat. Then, in a moment, he rallied from the shock and surprise, and, bringing the muzzle of his revolver to the dog’s breast, he fired. With a savage howl and a convulsive effort the animal, who had for the instant relaxed his hold, darted his head forward in a renewed attack. With his left hand trying to thrust back the dog, and his face working with rage and pain, Gastineau raised the revolver to cover Herriard who was trying for an opening to seize his enemy. As he did so, the half-ruinous masonry of the parapet, against which man and dog were pressing, yielded to their weight. It gave way; and, with a cry, Gastineau and Fritz went over, falling with the crushing masonry sheer forty feet on to the flagstones which were set round the tower.
