"Make yourself easy," said Cleggett, parrying a counter en carte, "I am only getting warm."And both of them, stung by the slight scratches which they had received, settled to the business with an intent and silent deadliness of purpose.
To all appearances Loge had an immense advantage over Cleggett; his legs were a good two inches longer; so were his arms.And he knew how to make these peculiarities count.He fought for a while with a calm and steady precision that repeatedly baffled the calculated impetuosity of Cleggett's attack.But the air of bantering certainty with which he had begun the duel had left him.He no longer wasted his breath on repartee; no doubt he was surprised to find Cleggett's strength so nearly equal to his own, as Cleggett had been astonished to find in Loge so much finesse.But with a second slight wound Loge began to give ground.
With Cleggett a bout with the foils had always been a duel.It has been indicated, we believe, that he was of a romantic disposition and much given to daydreaming; his imagination had thus made every set-to in thefencing room a veritable mortal combat to him.Therefore, this was not his first duel; he had fought hundreds of them.And he fought always on a settled plan, adapting it, of course, to the idiosyncrasies of his adversary.It was his custom to vary the system of his attack frequently in the most disconcerting manner, at the same time steadily increasing the pace at which he fought.And when Loge began to give ground and breathe a little harder, Cleggett, far from taking advantage of his opponent's growing distress to rest himself, as a less distinguished swordsman might have done, redoubled the vigor of his assault.Cleggett knew that sooner or later a winded man makes a fault.The lungs labor and fail to give the blood all the oxygen it needs.The circulation suffers.Nerves and muscles are no longer the perfect servants of the brain; for a fraction of a second the sword deviates from the proper line.
It was for this that Cleggett waited, pressing Loge closer and closer, alert for the instant when Loge would fence wide; waxing as the other waned; menacing eyes, throat, and heart with a point that leaped and dazzled; and at the same time inclosing himself within a rampart of steel which Loge found it more and more hopeless to attempt to penetrate.It was as if Cleggett's blade were an extension of his will; he and his sword were not two things, but one.The metal in his hand was no longer merely a whip of steel; it was a thing that lived with his own life.His pulse beat in it.It was a part of him.His nervous force permeated it and animated it; it was his thought turned to tempered metal, and it was with the rapidity, directness and subtlety of thought that his sword responded to his mind.
"Come!" said Cleggett, as Loge broke ground, scarcely aware that he spoke aloud."At this rate we shall be at home thrusts soon!"Loge must have thought so too; a shade passed over his face, his upper lip lifted haggardly.Perhaps even that iron nature was beginning to feel at last something of the dull sickness which is the fear of death.He retreated continually, and Cleggett was smitten with the fancy to force him backward and nail him, with a final thrust, to the stump of the foremast,which had been broken off some eight feet above the deck.
But Loge, gathering his power, made a brilliant and desperate rally; twice he grazed Cleggett, whose blade was too closely engaged; and then suddenly broke ground again.This time Cleggett perceived that he had been retreating in accordance with a preconceived program.He was certain the man contemplated a trick, perhaps some foul stroke.
He rushed forward with a terrible thrust.Loge, whose last maneuver had taken him within a yard of the hatchway opening into the hold, grasped Cleggett's blade in his left hand, and at the same instant flung his own sword, hilt first, full in Cleggett's face.As Cleggett, struck in the mouth with the pommel, staggered back, Loge plunged feet foremost into the hold.It was too unexpected, and too quickly done, for a shot from Barnstable or any of Cleggett's men.
Cleggett, with the blood streaming from his mouth, recovered himself and leaped through the aperture in the deck.He landed upon his feet with a jar, and, shortening his sword in his hand, stared about him in the gloom.
He saw no one.
An instant later Wilton Barnstable and Cap'n Abernethy were beside him.
"Gone!" said Cleggett simply.
Barnstable drew from his pocket a small electric lantern and swept the beam in a circle about the hold.Again and again he raked the darkness until the finger of light had rested upon every foot of the interior.
But Loge had vanished as completely as a snowflake that falls into a tub of water.
