at jack’s shout brito looked up. then he, too, cried out and settled himself back in the saddle.
slowly the two rode toward each other, pistols in hand. between them lay the hard-trampled level of the cattle yard. the sun had dropped behind the trees; the moon had not yet gathered power; no confusing shadows offered advantage to either.
suddenly brito flung up his pistol and fired. jack felt his hat torn from his head and saw it go sailing to the ground. he threw up his own pistol. then he hesitated; alagwa and the women and children were directly behind his foe. he dared not fire.
as he hesitated brito flung down his useless pistol and spurred at him, saber flashing as he came. jack reined back; his horse reared, striking with its hoofs, and brito’s black shied to the left and rushed by, brito’s blade singing harmlessly in the air as he passed.
the two men wheeled. they had changed places; jack’s back was toward the farmhouse. again he raised his pistol. his finger curled about the trigger.
brito paused and his face whitened. then he[327] cried out, jeering. “shoot, you cur!” he shrieked. “shoot, you d—d american! shoot an unarmed man if you dare. no englishman would take such an advantage. this isn’t war; it’s a private quarrel. if you’re not all cur, if there’s any telfair blood in your veins, throw down that pistol and fight on equal terms like a man.”
jack hesitated. brito had had his shot and had missed. he was talking merely to save his life; his taunts merited no consideration. jack knew well that he ought to shoot him down or take him prisoner. he knew that the men at the farmhouse were against him. nevertheless, brito’s words bit.
he turned in his saddle. alagwa was leaping to his side and to her he handed the pistol. “keep those others back,” he ordered swiftly. then he turned to face his foe.
it was high time. brito was coming straight for him. barely he had time to spur his horse aside and avoid the shock. as he leaped he heard brito shouting to the canadians to shoot.
jack wheeled. the two canadians had gone back into the farmhouse. now they were rushing out, muskets in hand. then alagwa’s pistol settled on the foremost and he heard their guns crash to the ground.
jack saw red. for the first time in his life the rage to kill seized him—a fierce, strong longing that[328] shook him from head to foot, a survival from the fierce, bitter primeval days when foes were personal and hate was undiluted. he snatched at his blade and drew it from the scabbard.
“you d—d cur!” he rasped. “you coward! by god! you’ll pay now.” wild as he was, he was also cold as ice; in some men the two go together.
like most gentlemen of the day jack had learned to use the foils and even to some extent the saber. but all his training had been with buttons, where to be touched meant merely the loss of a point on the score. never had he fought a duel or used a sword in anger, while brito had done both. to an outsider all the odds would have seemed to be with the older man.
but jack did not think of odds. like many men in the moment of extreme peril, he felt supreme assurance that victory was to be his. before him stretched the vision of long years of life and happiness with alagwa at his side. the coming fight was a mere incident, not a catastrophe that was to whelm him and her in ruin. eagerly he spurred forward.
the two horses crashed, rearing and biting, and over their heads the swords of the riders clashed. neither spoke. neither had mind to speak or even to think. both fought grimly, terribly, well knowing that for one the end was death. stroke and[329] parry, parry and stroke; hot and swift the one followed the other.
for the most part they fought at close quarters, but now and again the horses carried them apart. at one such moment jack glimpsed at the farmhouse door and its group. the women had fled inside and were peering from the windows; the children had disappeared altogether; the two men, disarmed, stood backed against the wall, under alagwa’s pistol.
the crimson sunset had faded from the sky, but the half-moon was glowing out, changing from its daylight sheen to a silver glory that spilled like rain upon the shadowy world. by its gleam the fight went on, minute after minute.
at last jack began to tire. his arms drooped and he began to fight on the defensive. he was scarcely twenty-one; for twenty-four hours he had not closed his eyes; for four days he had had little rest and little food; for months he had been torn with anxiety, more wearing than any exertion. brito had suffered, too, but his stress had been national rather than personal. his muscles were older and more seasoned, his arms more sinewy. his attack showed no signs of slackening.
suddenly his eyes gleamed. he had noted jack’s growing weakness. his tongue began to wag. “you fool!” he hissed. “i told you to keep out[330] of my way. this is the end. tonight—tonight——”
he disengaged and thrust, his blade singing within a hair’s breadth of jack’s throat. he thrust again and the keen edge hissed through jack’s sleeve. again he thrust, but this time jack met him with a parry that sent his blade wide.
but the englishman did not pause. his onslaught became terrible. his sword became a living flame, circling, writhing, and hissing in the moonlight. slowly he forced the american backward. for the moment no living man could have held ground against his fury.
then suddenly, when jack thought he could sustain no more, the attack slackened. flesh and blood could not maintain its fury. brito’s arm flagged for a second, perhaps in order to deceive; then he thrust again, upward, for the throat. jack, worn out, took a desperate chance. he did not parry with his blade; instead he threw up his hilt and caught brito’s point squarely upon the guard. a hair’s breadth to the right or to the left and the other’s sword would have pierced his throat. but that hair’s breadth was not granted. brito’s blade stopped short, bent almost double, and snapped short. brito himself swayed sideways, losing his balance for the moment. before he could recover jack rose in his stirrups and brought his blade down with a sweeping stroke against the bare,[331] brown neck that for an instant lay exposed. deep the steel cut. beneath it brito stiffened; his sword dropped from his hands; blood spouted from the severed veins; he swayed and toppled—dead.
jack scarcely saw him fall. the earth swayed round him in a mighty tourbillon; moon and stars danced in the sky in bewildering convolutions; the primeval trees beside the farmhouse rocked, cutting mighty zigzags across the milky-way. half-fainting he clung to his saddle, while beneath him the bay panted and wheezed, worn out by the stress of the fight.
slowly the mists cleared. out of them shone alagwa’s face, white, but glad with a great gladness. behind her the two men, crouched against the house, their staring, terror-filled eyes glistening in the moonlight.
jack’s fingers wagged toward the muskets at their feet. “give me those guns,” he breathed.
alagwa obeyed silently. he was in the ascendant now. he was the warrior; she the squaw, docile and obedient. her hour would come later and she was content to wait.
the men shrank back as jack took the guns, muttering pleas for mercy. the women came stumbling from the house, shrieking. jack did not heed them. he fired the guns into the air; then smashed them against the corner of the house. then he turned to alagwa and pointed to brito’s horse.[332] “come,” he ordered. “the fight is done. we must go.”
silently alagwa mounted and silently the two rode up the slope, across the moon-drenched woods upon the crest, and down the long backward trail to where the british and indian power had been shattered.
jack did not speak. he dared not. a sudden wondering panic had fallen upon him. he had won his bride at last. he had won her with his heart; he had earned her with his sword. he had shown her the thoughts of his heart at dawn beside tecumseh’s fire; he had shown her the work of his sword at dusk beside the farmhouse. she was his; he had only to put out his hand to claim her.
but he did not dare. love had throned her immeasurably above him. scarcely he dared look at her as she rode beside him in the white moonlight, swaying to the rhythm of her horse’s pace, mystic, strange—no woodland boy, no “sweet, gentle lady,” no indian maid—but all of these at once, all and more, a woman, his woman, his mate, born for him, foreordained for him since the first dawn that had silvered the world. speechless he rode on, glancing at her from sidelong eyes.
alagwa, too, was silent, waiting. this was her hour, and she knew it. but he must tell her—tell her what she already knew. not one sweet word of the telling would she spare him. and the worse he[333] boggled the telling the more she would love him. love—woman’s love—pardons all but silence.
at last jack found his tongue. he spoke hurriedly, gaspingly, trying to hide the ferment of his soul. “the war here is over,” he said. “i did not stay to see the end of the battle, but i know the british power in the west is shattered. most of the army will go home. and we will go to alabama. father is waiting to welcome you. i wrote him of you and he wrote me that if i did not bring you with me i might stay away myself. you will like father. he is fierce, like yourself, and tender-hearted, too—like yourself. ah! yes! you will like him and you will like alabama. alabama! i told you once what the word meant. it’s creek: a-la-ba-ma, here we rest. there we will rest. later we will go to france to see your inheritance—yours no more. father writes that napoleon has confiscated the telfair estates. but we can spare them. cato will go with us—father writes that the two girls he humbugged have husbands of their own and will not trouble him, and that the third—the one he is fond of—is waiting for him. rogers and fantine will make a match of it, i think. he says now that he likes to hear women’s talk. tecumseh—i do not know what his fate may be. but he swore he would win or leave his bones on the field today—and he did not win. i—i have read that letter; there was[334] nothing in it—nothing. i fainted because of my illness and not because of anything i read.”
jack’s voice died. he had run through his budget of news without broaching the subject that lay so near his heart. alagwa did not help him. silently she waited.
the night was wearing on. the moon was sinking into the west. its fairy sheen lingered faintly on the trees and the grass and dusty road that stretched through the dew-wet fields like a band of silver. high above, the multitudinous stars blazed in the firmament. silence reigned; no cry of bird or beast sounded through the night; even the sound of the horses’ hoofs was muffled in the soft dust. like spirits the two rode on through the enchanted silence.
then, in slow crescendo, the tinkle of a far-off brook blended softly into the beauty of the night, blended so softly that its music seemed the melody of tautened heart-strings. slowly it grew till the stream glanced suddenly out, dancing in the last rays of the setting moon. beyond it stretched an open space, floored with fallen leaves, ringed with tall saplings, silver edged, through whose leafless tops the stars shone faintly down.
the path to the ford was narrow. the two horses crowded into it, crushed their riders together, and at the touch jack’s surcharged heart[335] found vent. “alagwa! alagwa!” he cried, brokenly; and again, “alagwa!”
the girl swayed toward him. her eyes, wet with unshed tears, gleamed into his from beneath the dark masses of her tangled hair. then, in a moment his arms were round her and her head lay heavy on his breast. the horses halted, bending their heads to the water that rippled about their feet.
jack’s heart kindled in the swimming darkness. his pulse beat madly in his throat. “alagwa!” he gasped. “alagwa! friend! comrade! wife! i love you so! i love you so!”
“and i love you!” like a great organ note the girl’s voice echoed the avowal. “ah! but you know it. you know i left you for your own sake—for your own sake——”
closer and closer jack drew her. the flood-gates of his speech were broken up. words, undreamed before, leaped to his lips. “i loved you then,” he breathed. “i have loved you always. but the change from boy to man came too suddenly. i did not know. i did not understand. it took time—time and the touchstone of absence and peril and agony—to teach me that i was a fool and mad and blind.” he broke off, laughing with wonder. “fool that i was to tell you that i was fond of you! fool to prate of friendship! fool to match stilted periods when my every fibre was[336] thrilling, my every nerve quivering for you and you alone. i knew it and yet i knew it not. i did not dream that it was love that thrilled me. i did not know what love was. but now i know.”
the horses raised their heads, whinnying. slowly, high-stepping, they splashed through the lambent waters of the ford and out upon the broad bank.
jack leaped from the saddle and held up his arms for his bride. “we are far from camp,” he said, “and it is dangerous to approach it from this direction in the darkness. the horses are tired; the night is mild—and far spent. come, dear! come! a-la-ba-ma; here we rest.”
