St Ives | Page 9

bodies like a wet
sheet. The man was better at fencing than myself; he was vastly taller
than I, being of a stature almost gigantic, and proportionately strong. In
the inky blackness of the shed, it was impossible to see his eyes; and
from the suppleness of the wands, I did not like to trust to a parade. I
made up my mind accordingly to profit, if I might, by my defect; and as
soon as the signal should be given, to throw myself down and lunge at
the same moment. It was to play my life upon one card: should I not
mortally wound him, no defence would be left me; what was yet more
appalling, I thus ran the risk of bringing my own face against his
scissor with the double force of our assaults, and my face and eyes are
not that part of me that I would the most readily expose.
'Allez!' said the sergeant-major.
Both lunged in the same moment with an equal fury, and but for my
manoeuvre both had certainly been spitted. As it was, he did no more
than strike my shoulder, while my scissor plunged below the girdle into
a mortal part; and that great bulk of a man, falling from his whole
height, knocked me immediately senseless.
When I came to myself I was laid in my own sleeping-place, and could
make out in the darkness the outline of perhaps a dozen heads crowded
around me. I sat up. 'What is it?' I exclaimed.
'Hush!' said the sergeant-major. 'Blessed be God, all is well.' I felt him
clasp my hand, and there were tears in his voice. ''Tis but a scratch, my
child; here is papa, who is taking good care of you. Your shoulder is
bound up; we have dressed you in your clothes again, and it will all be
well.'
At this I began to remember. 'And Goguelat?' I gasped.
'He cannot bear to be moved; he has his bellyful; 'tis a bad business,'
said the sergeant-major.

The idea of having killed a man with such an instrument as half a pair
of scissors seemed to turn my stomach. I am sure I might have killed a
dozen with a firelock, a sabre, a bayonet, or any accepted weapon, and
been visited by no such sickness of remorse. And to this feeling every
unusual circumstance of our rencounter, the darkness in which we had
fought, our nakedness, even the resin on the twine, appeared to
contribute. I ran to my fallen adversary, kneeled by him, and could only
sob his name.
He bade me compose myself. 'You have given me the key of the fields,
comrade,' said he. 'Sans rancune!'
At this my horror redoubled. Here had we two expatriated Frenchmen
engaged in an ill-regulated combat like the battles of beasts. Here was
he, who had been all his life so great a ruffian, dying in a foreign land
of this ignoble injury, and meeting death with something of the spirit of
a Bayard. I insisted that the guards should be summoned and a doctor
brought. 'It may still be possible to save him,' I cried.
The sergeant-major reminded me of our engagement. 'If you had been
wounded,' said he, 'you must have lain there till the patrol came by and
found you. It happens to be Goguelat--and so must he! Come, child,
time to go to by-by.' And as I still resisted, 'Champdivers!' he said, 'this
is weakness. You pain me.'
'Ay, off to your beds with you!' said Goguelat, and named us in a
company with one of his jovial gross epithets.
Accordingly the squad lay down in the dark and simulated, what they
certainly were far from experiencing, sleep. It was not yet late. The city,
from far below, and all around us, sent up a sound of wheels and feet
and lively voices. Yet awhile, and the curtain of the cloud was rent
across, and in the space of sky between the eaves of the shed and the
irregular outline of the ramparts a multitude of stars appeared.
Meantime, in the midst of us lay Goguelat, and could not always
withhold himself from groaning.
We heard the round far off; heard it draw slowly nearer. Last of all, it
turned the corner and moved into our field of vision: two file of men
and a corporal with a lantern, which he swung to and fro, so as to cast
its light in the recesses of the yards and sheds.
'Hullo!' cried the corporal, pausing as he came by Goguelat.
He stooped with his lantern. All our hearts were flying.

'What devil's work is this?' he cried, and with a startling voice
summoned the guard.
We were all afoot upon the instant; more lanterns and soldiers crowded