Chapter 18 The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini
The Assault-at-Arms
On the following morning, Monsieur de Bernis, a little grey of face and with the deep lines in it more marked than usual, sat brooding alone on a little knoll at some distance from the hut, staring out over the sunlit lagoon at the Centaur, riding there with bare trees.
A fresh breeze had sprung up from the north at dawn, and the fronds of the palms were rustling softly behind him. From the northern end of the beach came the voices of the men labouring about the hull of the Black Swan which so soon now would be afloat again. Three days, at the utmost, was all that remained of this sojourn on Maldita. And it was this imminence of departure that was so deeply fretting Monsieur de Bernis, that had stripped him of that air of assured confidence which hitherto he had worn.
Pierre, as usual, was absent. In the last two days this absence had not merely been confined as previously to the morning, but had been repeated again in the late afternoon. According to the custom he had established, his return was not to be expected until midday. But now, suddenly, although it could not yet be nine o'clock, he appeared at Monsieur de Bernis' side, to arouse his master from his preoccupations. So effectively did the mere sight of him move Monsieur de Bernis that he was on his feet before Pierre had even spoken. His expression so strained as to be almost scared, he clutched the half-caste's wrist, and stared questioningly into his face.
Pierre grinned and nodded, showing signs of excitement. 'Enfin,' he said. 'Les voila!'
'C'est bien vrai?' Monsieur de Bernis demanded, like a man afraid to believe, lest his hopes should fool him.
'Venez donc voir, vous-même.' Pierre drew a telescope from inside his cotton shirt, which once had been white but now was grey, and handed it to de Bernis.
Then the two of them turned, and set off up the beach, Monsieur de Bernis observing that the Major was with Miss Priscilla, and satisfied that he would remain there on guard. They vanished into the woods, taking the path across the island by which Pierre had once conducted Miss Priscilla.
In less than half an hour they came out upon the western shore, and halted on the very edge of the sands to gaze out to sea in the direction in which the exultant Pierre was pointing.
Less than five miles away three great ships were beating up to eastward, close-hauled to the northerly breeze and listing to starboard under the weight of it until the edges of their white bellies showed below their red hulls.
Monsieur de Bernis levelled the telescope and for some moments stood carefully scanning them. They flew no flag; but their lines left him in no doubt of their identity.
As he closed the telescope, a grim smile was stamped on his dark, narrow face. 'In an hour they will have the island abeam. Come. There's no time to be lost.'
They sped back as swiftly as they had come. In all they had not been absent above an hour when they stepped out of the woods again beside their hut. There Monsieur de Bernis paused. From under his arm he took the telescope, which he had retained until now, and handed it to Pierre, who went off with it to his tent.
Monsieur de Bernis stepped into the hut, where the Major sat drowsily watching Priscilla, who was again busy with her needle. They looked up as he entered and went to take down his sword and baldrick from the hook where it was hung.
'Why that?' the girl asked him sharply.
Monsieur de Bernis shrugged. 'Feeling running as it does, it is well to go prepared.' He passed the heavily encrusted baldrick over his head, and settled it on his shoulder. 'It inspires respect. It acts as an inducement to civility.'
Reassured by that smiling explanation and his easy manner, they let him go.
Outside the hut he paused. Knowing what he went to do, he was moved to a last word with Priscilla, a last instruction to the Major in case the worst should befall him. Instead, however, after an instant's thought, he passed on to the half-caste's tent.
'Pierre, if the worst should happen to me, see to Miss Priscilla. You should meet few difficulties.'
Pierre's eyes, dark and soft as velvet, were filled with alarmed concern. 'Monsieur! Could you not wait? Is there no other way?'
'No way so sure as this. Besides, I owe it to myself.'
'Sure?' the half-caste echoed. 'But not sure for you.'
'Eh, pardieu! But yes. Sure enough for me.'
Pierre clutched his master's hand. He bore it to his lips. 'Dieu vous garde, monsieur!' he prayed.
De Bernis patted the bowed head. 'Sois tranquille, mon fils.' And upon that he departed resolutely.
Chance favouring his design, he came upon Tom Leach walking with Wogan within fifty yards of the buccaneer encampment. He gave them a friendly good day; gave it deliberately, with a flourish. Tom Leach looked him over without friendliness.
'What d'ye want here?'
'What I want?' Monsieur de Bernis displayed only surprise, to mask his satisfaction at finding the Captain so readily disposed to create the situation which the Frenchman desired. 'What I want?' he said again, his eyebrows up, his lip curling, his eyes looking down his nose at the buccaneer.
The very insolence of his attitude was steel to the flint of Leach's humour. 'Aye, what ye want. If thee's come to make mischief again, thee'd better ha' stayed away.'
They were making excellent progress, thought Monsieur de Bernis. He stepped close up to Leach, with arms akimbo, whilst Wogan looked on inscrutably. 'I don't think ye're civil, Tom.'
'Civil?' The Captain spat with deliberate offensiveness. 'I sees no call for civility.'
'So? In fact, Tom, I find you damned provocative.'
'Provocative! Ha! He finds me provocative, Mike! 'Slife! Are you to be provoked? Seems to me yours is the kind o' courage that likes to have a shelter, to make cat's-paws for itself.'
'That is what you know of me, is it?'
'It's what I's seen.'
Wogan accounted it time to make a pretence of intervening. 'Och, now, will ye be remembering what's ahead of us? Won't ye be making the peace, now, both of ye, and working together like good Brethren of the Coast. Come, now.'
'It is what I most desire, Wogan,' lied Monsieur de Bernis. 'I've been thinking that yesterday Tom said that to me which hurt my honour. If he'll unsay it now, I am ready to forget it.'
Thus, in his desire that the provocation should appear to come entirely from the other side, he gambled upon his knowledge of the Captain's mood and nature. The result did not disappoint him.
'Honour!' Leach crowed derisively. 'Your honour! Faith! That's good! That's very good for thee!' And he laughed, his eyes inviting Wogan to join him in his derisory mirth.
But the tall, lanky Irishman preserved a preternatural gravity. Nor was he entirely without anxiety. He was almost as solemn as Monsieur de Bernis, who was asking in solemn tones: 'Will you tell me what's to laugh at, Captain?'
'You! You and your honour, you cuckoldy jackanapes!'
In the next moment he was reeling under the sound and unexpected cuffing he received from the Frenchman. Monsieur de Bernis, accounting that things had gone far enough, and that Leach's words were more than sufficient to justify him, had acted quickly before Wogan could intervene.
Leach, recovering his balance, momentarily unsettled, fell back a pace or two, aghast and furious. His eyes blazed in his livid face. He began to unfasten his coat. 'By the living God! I'll cut your liver out for that, you French kite.'
'Steady, Captain! Holy Virgin! Steady, now!' cried Wogan.
Leach turned some of his rage upon him. 'Does thee think I'll take a blow from any man? I'll be steady when I's skewered his lousy vitals!' There was froth on his lips, madness in his eyes.
Wogan wrung his hands in distress. 'Och, now, Charley, what have ye done, ye fool?'
Monsieur de Bernis, following the example set him by Tom Leach, was already peeling off his coat of fine violet taffetas. 'What I had no choice but do. I'll ask you to bear witness to it, Wogan. Could I have my honour mocked by that dirty cut-throat, that foul son of a dog?'
In sheer amazement Leach suspended his preparations. Not in years had any man dared apply such terms to him in his hearing, and the last man in the world from whom he would have expected it was this Frenchman who only yesterday had swallowed his insults with such cowardly meekness. When he recovered from that gasping astonishment, he loosed a volley of obscenity, at the end of which came blood-curdling menaces.
'I'll flay thee bones for that, thee French pimp! I'll carve thee lousy hide into ribbons or ever I kills thee, thou dawcock!' He drew his sword with a vicious flourish, and flung scabbard and sword-belt from him. 'Guard thee self!' he snarled, and bounded in, to attack.
So treacherously swift and sudden was the action that Monsieur de Bernis was almost taken unawares. His sword was no more than half out of the sheath when that murderous lunge was aimed at him. He parried in the last fraction of a second with the half-drawn blade, still holding in his left hand the scabbard from which the baldrick trailed. Having parried, he broke ground, so as to disencumber himself. He cast scabbard and baldrick from him, and came on guard again promptly to meet the pursuing onslaught.
Fifty yards away the men at work on the hull of the Black Swan had seen these preliminary signs of an assault-at-arms. Now, as the blades clashed and ground together, the swordsmen feeling each other's strength, tools were dropped, and the buccaneers came swarming across the beach. Others who had been at rest leapt up to join them. They came laughing and shouting like children to a show For there was no spectacle in the world they loved better than this which was now offered to them. The gold of the plate fleet which might be lost to them by the issue of that combat, if remembered at all, weighed for nothing at the moment by comparison with the combat itself.
Halliwell and Ellis, who came running up with them, perceived this, and paused to restrain Bundry, who was angrily insisting that the fight must at all costs be stopped. That pause for argument destroyed any chance that Bundry might have had of successfully interfering. By the time he and his two companions reached the scene, the buccaneers had formed a dense ring about the combatants through which the shipmaster sought in vain to break. The perception of his intention was enough to increase the resistance of the men, and after that it was idle of Bundry to attempt to assert authority with scoundrels who recognized no authority, bowed to no discipline, save only when in action.
Meanwhile, gleefully watching the fight, the buccaneers laughed and cheered and flung their comments freely at the fighters, as if this were just some game or friendly contest being played for their amusement.
The display was certainly a brave one, fully deserving the enthusiasm it aroused in the spectators.
The swordsmanship of Tom Leach was his one redoubtable accomplishment. Often in the past had it been tested; for having come to account himself invincible, it had afforded keenest delight to his crude, feral nature to observe the growing consciousness of helplessness, the agony of assured defeat and inevitable death in the opponent with whom he toyed before finally dispatching him. He had been at pains to acquire his skill, and he supplemented it at need by a half-dozen tricks picked up in different parts of the world.
So it was with an exultant confidence that he engaged this detested de Bernis, whose arrogant existence alone offended his self-love, rendering him hideously conscious of his own defects, and for whose wife he was stark mad with covetousness. As Wogan knew, it was not the Captain's intention to kill the Frenchman. But, having defeated and disabled him, he would use this attack which de Bernis had made upon him as a pretext for cancelling the articles between them and for having recourse to those fiendish measures which he had yesterday disclosed to Wogan. Thus, without further preamble he would end the existing situation. He would squeeze the secret of the Spanish plate fleet from de Bernis and possess himself of de Bernis' wife. In the circumstances none would deny him, but, if any did, Leach would know how to deal with him.
For forty-eight hours now this had been the evil dream of Tom Leach, as he had shown Wogan yesterday when he opened his mind to him so as to deflect the Irishman's opposition.
And now, at last, his cunning had found a way to provoke the Frenchman into single combat, and here was de Bernis before his point, at his mercy.
In that spirit Tom Leach went into the engagement. And because of all that hung upon it, despite his confidence, he went into it cautiously and craftily. He knew that de Bernis enjoyed some repute as a swordsman. But there was nothing in this to intimidate Tom Leach. He had faced in his time other swordsmen of repute, and their repute had availed them little before his own superb mastery.
Agile as a cat in all his movements, and crouching a little as he fought, he advanced and retreated by little leaps, testing the other's guard at each disengage.
Erect and easily poised, parrying closely, and making no attempt to break ground, de Bernis mocked his antics, and sent a shiver of laughter through the spectators.
'Are we fighting, Captain, or are we dancing a fandango?'
The jest, combined with the easy firmness of the Frenchman's close guard, which depended upon the play of the wrist alone, momentarily angered Leach, and urged him to attack with greater fury and vigour. But when at the culmination of this attack, a swift, sudden unexpected counter drove him back, he recovered his poise and grew calm again by instinctive perception of the necessity for it. He was realizing by now that he had to do with a swordsman of more than ordinary strength, and that he must go cautiously to work.
But he lost none of his confidence in the skill with which it had thrilled him in the past to send many a tall fellow to his account.
He advanced again; and again the blades sang together. He thrust high. De Bernis parried lightly, using the forte of the blade with great effect, and countered promptly. Leach beat the blade aside with his left hand, and lunged with confidence, so as to take the other in the shoulder, but only to find his own blade set aside in the same manner. This brought them close to each other, each within the other's guard. Thus a moment they stood, eye to eye; then Leach recovered, and leapt nimbly back. Even as he did so, de Bernis' point whirled after him, swift as lightning. He parried; but he parried late. The point driven straight at his breast, was swept by him up and outwards; but not swiftly enough. It ploughed a furrow in his right cheek.
Infuriated by that first hit and even more by his near escape of worse, he crouched lower than ever. He was breathing hard, and his face had become livid save for that crimson line from which the blood was running down his neck.
He heard the excited chatter of the crowd, and the thought of this humiliation suffered in the eyes of his followers served to steady him. The disgrace of that wound must be wiped out. He had been rash. He had underestimated his antagonist. He must go more carefully to work. He must wear down that infernally close guard from which de Bernis derived his plaguey speed, before attempting his gradual subjugation. Hitherto he had led the onslaught and had not spared himself. He had better now leave that to the other, let the Frenchman spend himself in vain attack. And as if yielding to his wishes, it was now de Bernis who advanced upon him, and the Frenchman's glittering point was everywhere at once to dazzle him. It seemed to break up into two, four, six, several points that came at Leach at one and the same time, so that whilst Leach instinctively circled his blade so as to cover himself from this terrible ubiquity, yet, pressed as he was, he found himself falling back, again and yet again, for very life's sake.
It was only when at the end of a half-dozen such disengages, de Bernis failing to follow the Captain's last backward leap, Tom Leach could at last pause for breath, that the realization began to break upon him, in furious surprise and mortification, that at last he, in whom past victories had bred the insolent conviction of invincibility, had met his master.
Whilst he knew nothing of the assiduous practice with which de Bernis had been exercising and keeping alive his skill, yet he began to realize that he, himself, had rusted for lack of sword-play, and that, too confident of himself, he had neglected to preserve his speed in the only way in which a swordsman may preserve it.
Into his soul crept now the horrible, paralysing anticipation of defeat and death which in the past he had with such gloating inspired in others. As he realized it, a change came over his face, which was grey and smeared with sweat and blood. In his eyes de Bernis read the despair that told of his conviction of defeat, and feared that perhaps, as a last treachery, Leach might throw down his sword in the hope thereby of forcing his men to intervene. Lest this should happen, de Bernis gave him now no time, but by a vigorous renewal of the attack compelled him desperately to guard himself. And now, as in the course of that forlorn defence, the Captain continued to fall back, de Bernis mocked and insulted him again.
'Will you stand your ground, you mangy dog? Or must I follow you round the island in this heat? Name of God! D'ye call yourself a swordsman? Stand, you cur! Stand for once, and fight!'
Thus apostrophized, fury mounting above his terror, Leach not merely stood, but bounded forward like a panther, but only to waste his energy upon space; for de Bernis, side-stepping to avoid his charge, made him instantly spin upon his feet to meet the thrust with which from his disengage the Frenchman riposted.
The promptitude of his own recovery from that position of disadvantage revived Leach's fading courage. It was an evidence of his strength and skill. He had despaired too soon. There was no reason for it. He might yet prevail. All that he must abandon was that hope of reducing, as he had intended, a swordsman so formidable as this opponent. That, however, was no reason why he should not succeed in killing him. There were tricks he knew. He had never yet had reason to have recourse to any one of them. But he had reason now. He would show this Frenchman something.
In his new-found confidence, he fenced closely until he found the position he desired, following upon a parried thrust. He feinted in the high lines, aiming at de Bernis' throat, and as the Frenchman's blade moved up, Leach went swiftly under his guard, and with that feline agility he commanded stretched himself in a lunge; but it was not an ordinary lunge; it was an extension of it in the Italian manner, in which the whole body of the lunger is parallel with the ground and supported immediately above it upon his left hand. Thus, like a snake, almost upon his belly, he sent his point ripping upward under de Bernis' guard, assured that he must spit him like a lark, for there is no straight parry that will deflect such a lunge once it is well launched.
But de Bernis was no longer there when the other's point drove home. Pivoting slightly to the left, he averted his body by making in his turn a lunging movement outward upon the left knee. So hard-driven had Leach made his lunge in his confidence of sending it home, that, meeting no resistance, he was momentarily off his balance. A full second at least must be delayed in his recovery. But that recovery was never made. For in that unguarded second, de Bernis, whose queer, unacademic movement had placed him low upon his opponent's flank, passed his sword from side to side through the Captain's extended body.
There was an outcry simultaneously from the crowd of buccaneers, then utter silence, as Monsieur de Bernis, having withdrawn his sword, placing one foot for the purpose against the body of his fallen opponent, stood erect and grim, breathing a little hard and mopping the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his fine cambric shirt.
Standing over Tom Leach as he lay coughing out his evil life upon the sands, Monsieur de Bernis ruefully shook his head, and in the silence his voice rang clear.
'Too fine an end for such as you, my Captain.'