Doom Castle | Page 5

must have been in his legs to carry
him more swiftly than thoroughbred limbs had borne Count Victor. He
stood sneering in the path, turning up the right sleeve of a soiled and
ragged saffron shirt with his left hand, the right being engaged most
ominously with a sword of a fashion that might well convince the
Frenchman he had some new methods of fence to encounter in a few
minutes.
High and low looked Count Victor as he slacked his pace, seeking for
some way out of this sack, releasing as he did so the small sword from
the tanglement of his skirts, feeling the Mechlin deucedly in his way.

As he approached closer to the man barring his path he relapsed into a
walk and opened a parley in English that except for the slightest of
accents had nothing in it of France, where he had long been the
comrade of compatriots to this preposterous savage with the manners of
medieval Provence when footpads lived upon Damoiselle Picoree.
"My good fellow," said he airily, as one might open with a lackey, "I
protest I am in a hurry, for my presence makes itself much desired
elsewhere. I cannot comprehend why in Heaven's name so large a
regiment of you should turn out to one unfortunate traveller."
The fat man fondled the brawn of his sword-arm and seemed to gloat
upon the situation.
"Come, come!" said Count Victor, affecting a cheerfulness, "my
waistcoat would scarcely adorn a man of your inches, and as for my
pantaloons"--he looked at the ragged kilt--"as for my pantaloons, now
on one's honour, would you care for them? They are so essentially a
matter of custom."
He would have bantered on in this strain up to the very nose of the
enemy, but the man in his path was utterly unresponsive to his humour.
In truth he did not understand a word of the nobleman's pleasantry. He
uttered something like a war-cry, threw his bonnet off a head as bald as
an egg, and smote out vigorously with his broadsword.
Count Victor fired the pistol à bout portant with deliberation; the flint,
in the familiar irony of fate, missed fire, and there was nothing more to
do with the treacherous weapon but to throw it in the face of the
Highlander. It struck full; the trigger-guard gashed the jaw and the
metalled butt spoiled the sight of an eye.
"This accounts for the mace in the De Chenier quartering," thought the
Count whimsically. "It is obviously the weapon of the family." And he
drew the rapier forth.
A favourite, a familiar arm, as the carriage of his head made clear at
any time, he knew to use it with the instinct of the eyelash, but it

seemed absurdly inadequate against the broad long weapon of his
opponent, who had augmented his attack with a dirk drawn in the left
hand, and sought lustily to bring death to his opponent by point as well
as edge. A light dress rapier obviously must do its business quickly if it
was not to suffer from the flailing blow of the claymore, and yet Count
Victor did not wish to increase the evil impression of his first visit to
this country by a second homicide, even in self-defence. He measured
the paunched rascal with a rapid eye, and with a flick at the left wrist
disarmed him of his poignard. Furiously the Gael thrashed with the
sword, closing up too far on his opponent. Count Victor broke ground,
beat an appeal that confused his adversary, lunged, and skewered him
through the thick of the active arm.
The Highlander dropped his weapon and bawled lamentably as he tried
to staunch the copious blood; and safe from his further interference,
Count Victor took to his heels again.
Where the encounter with the obese and now discomfited Gael took
place was within a hundred yards of the castle, whose basement and
approach were concealed by a growth of stunted whin. Towards the
castle Count Victor rushed, still hearing the shouts in the wood behind,
and as he seemed, in spite of his burden, to be gaining ground upon his
pursuers, he was elate at the prospect of escape. In his gladness he
threw a taunting cry behind, a hunter's greenwood challenge.
And then he came upon the edge of the sea. The sea! Peste! That he
should never have thought of that! There was the castle, truly, beetling
against the breakers, very cold, very arrogant upon its barren
promontory. He was not twenty paces from its walls, and yet it might
as well have been a league away, for he was cut off from it by a natural
moat of sea-water that swept about it in yeasty little waves. It rode like
a