Volney turned on his heel and beckoned to Beauclerc.
“Will you act for me, Topham?” he asked; and when the other assented, added: “Arrange the affair to come off as soon as possible. I want to have done with the thing at once.”
They fought within the hour in the Field of the Forty Footsteps. The one was like fire, the other ice. They were both fine swordsmen, but there was no man in England could stand against Volney at his best, and those who were present have put it on record that Sir Robert’s skill was this day at high water mark. He fought quite without passion, watching with cool alertness for his chance to kill. His opponent’s breath came short, his thrusts grew wild, the mad rage of the man began to give way to a no less mad despair. Every feint he found anticipated, every stroke parried; and still his enemy held to the defensive with a deadly cold watchfulness that struck chill to the heart of the fearful bully. We are to conceive that Craven tasted the bitterness of death, that in the cold passionless face opposite to him he read his doom, and that in the horrible agony of terror that sweated him he forgot the traditions of his class and the training of a lifetime. He stumbled, and when Sir Robert held his hand, waiting point groundward with splendid carelessness for his opponent to rise, Craven flung himself forward on his knees and thrust low at him. The blade went home through the lower vitals.
Volney stood looking at him a moment with a face of infinite contempt, than sank back into the arms of Beauclerc.
While the surgeon was examining the wound Craven stole forward guiltily to the outskirts of the little group which surrounded the wounded man. His horror-stricken eyes peered out of a face like chalk. The man’s own second had just turned his back on him, and he was already realizing that the foul stroke had written on his forehead the brand of Cain, had made him an outcast and a pariah on the face of the earth.
The eyes of Volney and his murderer met, those of the dying man full of scorn. Craven’s glance fell before that steady look. He muttered a hope that the wound was but slight; then, in torture, burst out: “’Twas a slip. By Heaven, it was, Volney! I would to God it were undone.”
“‘To every coward safety, and afterward his evil hour,’” quoted Volney with cold disdain.
The murderer turned away with a sobbing oath, mounted his horse and rode for the coast to begin his lifetime of exile, penury, and execration.
“Do I get my passport?” asked Sir Robert of the surgeon.
The latter began to talk a jargon of medical terms, but Volney cut him short.