“Rivals! you and I!” was my scornful answer. “Was that your intention, Count?”
He gave a shrug and a look of devilish mockery. “I had not made up my mind. I have not an Englishman’s good fortune. But it is plain that the time for one of us has arrived.”
In talking to me like this he must have felt pretty confident of the difference between my nature and his own; had the positions been reversed, little time would he have given me for parley, except, perhaps, as a cat prolongs a mouse’s agony. I had evidently taken him by surprise, and so at a disadvantage; no chance was left for him but to calculate upon my sense of chivalry. Chivalry with that murderous reptile! I wonder how I allowed such a consideration to influence me; but somehow it seemed hard to pull the trigger in cold blood.
“Will you give me a chance, my dear Tyrrell?” he demanded again, but without the ugly grin. “Or are you going to shoot me here as I stand defenceless? If so, for Heaven’s sake be quick about it.”
Instead of taking him at his word, I, like a fool, began to retort. The thought of Asta and all this loathsome brute had made her suffer came to my mind with the recollection of the pitiable state of fear she had shown that evening.
“Chance!” I cried. “What chance did you mean to give me when you pressed me to eat poisoned sweetmeats at your cursed table? What chance was I to have in that assassin’s room you gave me to sleep in? What chance did you give that poor priest whom you decoyed to your devil’s den—the man who, three hours after, was lying in his grave in the wood. You talk to me of—ah! you——!”
He had suddenly stooped and made a desperate rush at me. Perhaps he saw that I was working myself up to do what I should have done long before. No doubt my vehemence had relaxed my alertness. His move was a clever one, for in his stooping position, he offered a much worse mark for a shot, and greatly reduced the certainty of a mortal wound. In that one fierce crouching spring he was upon me and at close quarters, while my advantage was almost gone. I must have fired, but have no recollection of the shot. I only know that each seized the other’s right wrist with the left hand. So he was safe from my revolver, and I from something I could see shining in his grasp.
I think the feeling uppermost in my mind at that supreme moment was one of bitter disgust at my own folly; but, after the first pang of discomfiture there was no room for any thought but of mastering the human hyena that had fastened on me. It was evident to me that I was the stronger and more athletic man, but then my adversary had the strength of desperation; he had gained the first advantage, and would naturally fight like a demon.
It was scarcely a violent struggle at first. We stood for a while wrestling warily, confining our efforts almost entirely to the arms. I can see now Furello’s horrible face close to mine; it was as though in those critical moments every evil passion of his life, every crime, every knavery, sprang its index into his countenance. If ever the Devil looked out of a man’s eyes, there he was in that glare of desperate vicious hatred and rage. Soon I put forth a greater effort, and to my relief it confirmed the idea that my adversary’s strength was less than my own. I forced him backwards step by step till I held him against the wall. Suddenly he pressed himself close against me, struggling furiously to force towards me the hand I held. In it was an object which scarcely suggested a weapon. A short metal instrument, square at the butt and tapering to a very fine point. I could not tell what it actually was, but the fact of the Count’s using it was enough to give me a shrewd idea of its purpose. At any rate I thought I would make trial of its effectiveness on its owner. So, holding away from the sting-like point, I forced Furello round from the wall, then against the table, then backwards upon it, where naturally he was at my mercy. Then I set myself to force down the hand with its mysterious weapon upon him. As he realized my intention he, even at the disadvantage of that almost helpless position, struggled with such convulsive fury that for a time he baffled my purpose. Then gradually my greater strength told, the point was forced down till it entered his cheek.
“A——h!”