# The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust

A Sword-Play Romance of the Seventeenth Century
THE GREAT TODESCAN'S SECRET THRUST
By
Agnes & Egerton Castle
Authors of "The Pride Jennico," etc.
They had their time, and we may say: they were!
Don Lewis of Madrid is now the sole remaining master of the world.
Ben Jonson (The New Inn).
IT WAS close upon noon, hour of the "ordinary" at the Bolt-in-Tun, that noted tavern over against Ludgate, by the Fleet.
Hither a goodly company of your cavaliero gentry, whether captains of fortune or town gulls, were wont daily to foregather, intent as much upon the gleaning of foreign news as upon the savory promise of a good dinner.
For the common room of the Bolt-in-Tun was rarely devoid of some new great man fresh from oversea experience and full of tales as a hen is of clucks. Here might you at all times reckon upon the diversion of tall stories of Bohemia or Eldorado; of Castile's splendor or cruelty of border onsets and leaguers; of outfalls and camisadoes in Portugal or Muscovy; of boardings, wrecks, and discoveries about the Spanish Main—admirable and much-admired adventures which nevertheless seemed to have left their hero none the wealthier, save in fine-chased outlandish oaths.
But this day, the last of September in the year 1602, forty-fourth of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the ruffling community at the "Tun"—old and young, all lovers of a blade—was too deeply engrossed in the topic of the London hour to have much interest to spare for travelers' tales.
Yet the latest oracle of them all, a man, tall, gray-bearded, of freebooting manner and conscious truculence of mien, was not only well prepared (as his attitude testified) to fill his post with due relish, but, unlike many of his kind, bore evidence of having really countered many hard knocks of fate. One hollow orbit, a gash that had shorn his weather-beaten countenance of the best part of an ear, not to speak of a left hand reduced to one finger and the thumb—each memento of adventure might in its turn have served for fitting introduction to some tall story.
For the moment he sat in moody silence, his single eye roaming fierce and wary from one to the other of the eager faces about him—watching for the chance, it seemed, of springing upon the talk and holding it as his own. From time to time he lifted the ale pot to his lips with that mutilated hand that yet showed menace in its pinch. At length a scanty stock of patience seemed, on a sudden, to fail him; for he raised a voice that drew every eye suddenly full upon him.
"Vincent, again!" quoth he. "By the curse of Mahound, and who may this Vincent be that ye all should be gathering, in thought, like so many rats to-day round his carcass? Let us be talking of living men, my springalls, and let the dead go rot; for, by your laments, I take it that he's dead in his bed even as any old woman—this same gallant Vincentio Saviolo!"
For an instant there was that pause around the table which marks some monstrous pronouncement; then a sudden clamor among the huffing crowd, a scraping of boots and spurs as sundry started to their feet, a mouthing of oaths, a jingling of cans as others turned upon their bench to confront the blasphemer. It required all mine host's persuasiveness to quell the rising threat—aided, no doubt, by the steadiness of the adventurer's single orb that looked with such mastery out of the tanned visage.
"I pray you, masters, no tumult here, and on this day! And pray you, good Captain Strongi'th'arm, you should know that the name of Vincent Saviolo, the great master of fence, who died but yestereve, is one we speak here with respect. Where shall he be mourned more than at the Bolt-in-Tun, which has sounded to his tread daily these twenty years? But you are from foreign parts, Captain, and have not known him."
"'Twas the tallest man of his hands, at all manner of weapons, but above all at rapier play," asserted a gallant from the end of the table, and made in dumb show, with his two forefingers extended, the sketch of a pass with sword and dagger.
"The subtlest arbiter in all matters of honorable difficulty," cried another, older and grave. The encomium was capped by a youth with a court air about him.
"A most noted favorite, look you, of her Majesty. Her Grace liked above all things to be heard tripping Italian with the gallant signor. Ah, Her Grace knows a right proper man!" added he and smiled as one who has his reason for saying so.
"Aye, aye," commented mine host genially, glad to see the vexed question like to be settled by wag of tongue only, "and Master Vincent was likewise a friend of my good Lord of Pembroke."
"And I'll tell you more," interposed a raffish blade from the "Friars," much bedizened if somewhat out at elbows; "one who first put a rapier in Master Will Shakespeare's hand—one who was himself the butcher of a silk button (Oh, rare!) as Mercutio hath it in the play!"
Captain Strongi'th'arm's little fierce eye, which had mellowed under something like amusement, suddenly became fixed upon the doorway.
"Here come two as goodly youths," he asserted into space, "as I have seen since I landed. But, body o' me! whence do our honest English lads get knowledge of these foreign antics? In my time, an elbow in the stomach was the way to settle precedence if the portal was scant for two."
"Aha now!" exclaimed the gallant who was of the court, "these same antics, as you call them, are as a point of honor with all scholars of our lamented Master Saviolo, and all the more punctiliously observed by yonder pair that, from the friends they were yesterday, they have become rivals to-day."
"Say you so?" called out eagerly a young gull from the other side of the table. "How so, fair sir?"
"Why, 'tis the sole talk in Paul's Walk this morning. Have you never heard? Robert Beckett and Dick Wyatt are, by Signor Vincentio's dying wish, expressed to my Lord of Pembroke himself, to contend for the reversion of the Master's honors in the 'Friars,' aye and of the mastership itself at the Academy!"
All glances were turned toward the door, to gaze upon the two who had assumed so sudden an importance in the ruffling world. The question of courteous precedence had been settled and the shorter of the newcomers advanced into the room with a slow step and an air of gravity that seemed to sit uneasily upon his comely sanguine countenance. A goodly youth, broad-shouldered, sinewy, his bright brown eyes seemed made to match a flashing smile.
"Master Robert Beckett, a student at the Temple—good Kentish stock, sir," murmured mine host into Strongi'th'arm's split ear. "And behind him, sir, his friend, Master Wyatt."
"A tall galliard," commented the adventurer, "though less of a gentleman than your Templar."
"Aye, good sir," assented the other, still under his voice; "your perspicacity has hit in the gold. 'Twas a mere city 'prentice—till some good dame marked him for her heir, and dying left him rich."
"Master Vincent's two best scholars, Sir Traveler," here interposed a typical Paul's man, with long tooth and ragged lip, fixing on the veteran an aggressive stare and speaking loud as one in hopes of stirring up the drooping spirit of fight. These are the lads to take up with you for the fame of Saviolo's Academy!"
Under the insolent look, the old man's blood was fired again. He struck the table with his sound hand.
"Good lack!" he cried testily. "Saviolo! Saviolo! I've a surfeit of the name!"
As the words rang out, Master Beckett halted and faced the speaker. Then, with measured action, he unhooked his rapier and clapped it, still sheathed, on the table. Not brutally, mark you, but with that nice hint of declared hostility, as learned in the inner room of Saviolo's Academy, where the more recondite points of honorable quarreling were studied.
After which he sat down in silence, half facing this contemner of the revered master. Silence had fallen; even the drawer hung in the doorway to watch progress.
A gleam of new appreciation appeared in the veteran's solitary orb. For a while he gazed upon the Templar; then, slowly smiling, raised his tankard and saluted.
"'Twas right gallantly done, young sir," he said. "Don Lewis Pacheco de Narvaez"—Spanish pronounced with exaggerated lisp—"Don Lewis, who follows the footsteps of the great Carranza (mirror of cavalier perfection), never put the counter-check quarrelsome with better grace! You mind me of him, fair youth," he went on paternally. "Hast traveled, doubtless? Nay, I'll swear thou hast met him. None but your Castilliano, say I, to open a difference with the right martial scorn."
"Sir," retorted Beckett with some harshness, giving his beaver, as he spoke, a bellicose dent with his knuckles, "I claim no travels, and therefore no Spanish schooling. Nor have I known of a brighter mirror of honorable bearing than Master Vincent Saviolo, whose loss we are lamenting."
"Why, 'tis as the burthen of a song!"
"And this," the young man interrupted, of a sudden overboiling, "I am ready to maintain with disputation, and eke with my body, against any soldado or captain who will walk!"
"Well crowed for a cockerel, fair sir, since crowing there must be. Yet, mark me, somewhat too loud at first point of quarrel. Hast come to the challenge already—and upon a lie circumstantial only? And as for thy retort, it lacks, first, element. 'Nor have I known,' say you. How could'st thou know? Hast not traveled. Cockayne is fair enough—'tis not the world. How old are you, boy? Thinkest thou, because thou hast achieved fair London skill in thy rapier, could'st already have the whole art and mystery of fence under that saucy cap?—which same thou mayest as well remove at this stage, lad, for I will not fight thee."
"Nay, then, sir, 'twere fitter not to dispute when there is no readiness to prove."
The retort, given in a tone of doggedness, was capped dryly enough:
"Aye, 'tis easy for April to challenge December. Time was, look you, when I would have met this Saviolo in proper wrangle and disputation. Aye, I would have confuted his passes with suitable blade logic! Wilt fight me for thy teacher's sake?"
He stretched out his left hand as he spoke and laid it, not unkindly but with some authority, on Master Beckett's arm. Ere the lad could fling off the touch, he caught sight of the maimed stumps, and reddened.
"Aye," went on the old soldier resignedly, "that was my dagger hand, a halbert at the infall of the Pamplona palisadoes. 'Tis gone, fit for naught but the holding of a pipe, or the ringing of a coin! And without your dagger, these days, your rapier's best strokes in counter-time are naught. To such as me, your broad bilbo"—he jerked his thumb toward the basket-hilt that hung behind him on the wall—"is your only thigh companion. Plain cut and thrust; and the less occasion for it the healthier. For, in all fighting—as one of your mastery, fair sir, full well knows—he who trusts long to mere defense waits but to be hit. 'Tis the onslaught wins the duello; and to what manner of onslaught, think you, master, will this timber lead me against thy lusty legs?"
He hoisted himself from the bench, thrusting his figure into a burlesque attitude of fence; and it became plain to all that his right leg was naught but a wooden stump.
A murmur ran through the room, followed by a general shout of laughter; the old man struck at the wood with the knife he was brandishing and lumbered back to his bench. Then, after surveying the piteous makeshift for the missing limb with an air of melancholy philosophy, he turned his shrewd eye once more on the youth's abashed face.
"Time was!" he repeated, between a sigh and a laugh. "I be now but a hulk, towed into harbor at last, from long journeys, unfit for fresh cruises. But what though? A man may be no more for jaunty quarrels, yet he may speak. Ho, there! Thomas the drawer! Bring a quart of burnt sack; and put me a toast in it, and place it me by my young friend's elbow! Nay sir," he added with a kind of paternal authority, "but you shall have a nooning cup with me."
"Oh, sir!" cried Beckett, and his lips trembled upon words of regret that failed to form themselves.
The drawer had returned with the brimming tankard, the roast crab bobbing, a little brown island in the frothing amber of the burnt sack. The young Templar seized the cup and, pledging the donor with his frank glance, raised the draft to his lips. Then, removing his rapier from the table, further doffed his cap with pretty deference.
Dick Wyatt, who had watched his rival's behavior, fruitlessly racking his brain in search of some right proper cavaliero sally of his own, here followed the example, if more awkwardly, and sat down on the other side.
Strongi'th'arm looked from one to the other with benevolent interest:
"And so you two boys are rivals for the great prize?"
The glances of the two young men met. Blue eyes and brown flashed a second like blades; then, upon a common thought, were veiled with dropped lids, and both boyish faces colored deep.
"It was the Master's wish," said Beckett then. "He could not choose between us."
Wyatt tossed his fair curls with sudden defiance.
"'Twill be a rare sight, Master Traveler," quoth he, with not unbecoming arrogance. "Trial in the 'Friars' at Rapier Single, Rapier and Dagger, Rapier and Cloak, the Case of Rapiers, on the scaffold, under my Lord Pembroke's ordering. Ah, and under Her Grace's own eyes! We have six months to to be ready against the match."
And again the young eyes met.
Captain Strongi'th'arm cast round the table a glance of triumph; in spite of the counter-interest, he was at last the leader of the meeting. He chuckled in his beard, cleared his throat, and took the lead that was his due.
"Having heard you, sirs, there even comes to me a regret that I knew not this Master Vincent. (It was soon after the great year of Cadiz that I sailed from home.) God, no doubt, made him a good man, since the youth of England loved him so greatly. Nathless, what know you of other lands where cunning at tricks of point and edge is as common as potency at ale-potting among us? What know ye of lands where the long rapier is the true staff of life? For, hark ye, in these days, your signor, your don, and your mounseer finds a commodity of secret foynes better equipment in a walk through the town than the best-lined pouch. No gallant worth looking at that has not killed his man! Beyond seas, every captain of fortune and eke every private gentleman, if he weathers the thirtieth year unscathed, must needs be indeed a master sword. Aye, believe me, he who would set up as a master, let him have met abundance of cunning blades—not scores but hundreds! More to learn every year, north and south. If it be not in Antwerp, then in Milan or Madrid—Now where in England——"
"I marvel greatly, sir," put in a gallant, huffily preparing to rise, "at hearing an Englishman extol the foreigner's valor over his countryman's."
The veteran's eye lighted with a flash. He was about to make a scathing reply; but checked himself and resumed his didactic tone:
"Valor? We speak of fencer's skill, not of the soldier's fight natural, wherein (who should chronicle it better than I, Captain Strongi'th'arm?) our English do excel at push of pike and swash of good backsword. We speak of the duello; it has rules of bearing galore—aye, and surprises endless, as on any chessboard. And no man may say that he has encompassed them all. Great he may be, even as your dead Vincent—till a greater be found."
Eager, the circle now hung on the words. None more eager than the two young rivals, who had edged along the bench till they pressed the speaker on either side. Brown eyes sparkling, white teeth flashing, Beckett flung a breathless question into the first pause:
"Who, then, most experienced Captain, since"—dropping his voice in melancholy loyalty—"since our Vincent is no more, reckon you the true master of these days?"
The fine old wreck of venture was now fully launched upon the waters of garrulity. He turned his single eye toward the rafters, as if he could see painted thereon some vivid images of memory.
"Ah, who shall say?" he went on with gusto. "Not I, till I have seen all those who would be called masters brought together in one pit and matched as cocks are in battle royal. Aye, the talk is now of the peerless Narvaez of Madrid. Yet have I known others as magnificently spoke of. There is Petty Jean the Burgonian, look you—and the Seigneur St. Didier of Provence. And we hear of Caizo the Neapolitan and Tappa Milanese—and of Mynheer Joachim, best famed as the Great Almayne—and I have known Meister Eisenkopf, alias Mastro Capoferro of Bologna—a valiant! Valiant? They are all valiant as cocks, on their own ground! Ever, when I hear of a new mighty peck-and-spur, I marvel what would happen of the last, could they both meet on the same dunghill! I knew one, especially, of late—and, body o' me!—were I a youth again with limbs and eyes and blood fit for prowess; were I one of those that are ever readier with proof by stoccado than with word argument, with slap of cloak at the face than with sweep of plumed hat—" He struck Beckett on the shoulder with the mutilated hand, in friendly mockery, to emphasize his words and, at the same time, not to leave the eager boy on the right out of his amenity, gave Wyatt a sly thrust of his wooden leg under the table. Then he proceeded: "Were I one of your wild cats, say I, 'tis not to Don Lewis, nor to Thibault of Antwerp, nor yet to Cavalcabo of Rome that I would hie me—though Cavalcabo was a man ere he was slit to the heart by one Fabricius, a Danish gentleman, all about a matter of wager in fencing argument. To none of these, but to one like Maistre Todescan of Geneva."
Now, it was singular to note how, at this point, both the scholars flung a furtive glance toward each other, arrested midway, and modestly drooped again upon their can. Singular, too, the abstract air they assumed; and the tone of indifference in which Dick Wyatt presently asked:
"And what countryman was he, worthy Captain?"
The veteran who, lost in fond introspection, had been twirling his tankard to stir up the last drop of sugar, tilted it finally, smacked his lips, and was off:
"Would I could say of such a man-queller he is an Englishman! But no. They call him Todescan. Ho, ho! I once met a corporal in Piedmont they called Espingola, who was the longsword man of a German company! Now—an he and my Todescan were not within the same skin—but 'tis no part of an old soldier's work to rake up tales! So, Todescan, from Provence, and a Huguenot—let him have it so, I say!
"Anyhow he is a great man in Geneva, provost-of-arms, trainer of the town companies, accepted citizen.… Aye, aye, those long-head burghers, ever thinking of their ravening neighbors in the mountains of Savoy, have gaged the worth of such a man! Espingola was a good rogue, stuffed with fighting tricks as a brush is with bristles, and the simplest of them worth a Jew's eye.… Todescan sings psalms, hath no variety in his swearing, and holds an even prospect of not dying in his boots after all! And the youth of Geneva sucks knowledge out of him as a weasel sucks an egg! But," added the speaker slyly, as he marked the changing visage of the young Templar, "rest ye merry, masters, they are little likely to cross the silver sea to contest it with Saviolo's scholars for the succession of Saviolo's honors!"
Beckett rose suddenly.
"I cry you mercy, Captain," he said, taking up his rapier from the wall and slinging it briskly back to its carriages as if moved by a mighty haste, " I would we could invite you to a friendly bout on the scaffold; but since it can not be—Bellona having marked you too often for her own—why, then, give you good den, Signor Strongi'th'arm!"
The Captain rose upon his stump, made an elaborate congée, and stood, with good-humored mien, watching the young man salute his comrade and stride out of the door in right dapper deportment. When the last inch of the smartly cocked rapier scabbard, neatly draping a fold of the cloak, had disappeared round the corner, he himself called for his bilbo and cape; and as he flung the patched folds with noble gesture about his old shoulders, he found Dick Wyatt at his elbow.
"Ah, fare ye well, young sir," said he genially. "Shall ye take advice? Then, till your locks are blanched and rare, like these, never believe you have that skill, not only in your rapier play but in any art military, which is not some day to be caught in a trap. Now, I mind me, being in Genoa, the year of the great Barbary sailing, there was mighty talk of a new-fangle kind of fire-pot, and——"
"But, nay, good Captain, let me entreat you yet to one moment more of rapier-talk. An it please you, I would fain attend you on your walk home."
And as the clank of the lusty young spurred heel presently rang out past the open windows of the tavern, punctuated by the thud of the voyager's wooden stump on the cobblestones of Fleet Lane, the lingerers within the room could hear a boyish voice tammering upon the outlandish name: Todescan—Todescan of Geneva—Todescan of Geneva.
II
Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,
Too good to be so and too bad to live!…
With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat!…
What my tongue speaks my right drawn sword may prove.
Shakespeare (Richard II).
IT WAS the eleventh of December by English reckoning—the twenty-second according to the new Gregorian calendar used in foreign lands—that Dick Wyatt, at a turning of the road by the elbow of a hill, came in sight of the goal of his three months' journeying.
Reining in his nag, he gazed. There was Geneva! It rose in the distance from the plain, severe within its bastioned walls; a few spires faintly gilt by the parting rays of the sun fast sinking behind the farther chain of low hills. There was something in the spring of the cathedral on its eminence above the black clustering roofs which brought back to his mind, with a transient pang of yearning, the outline of Paul's on Ludgate Heights, away in far England. In the forefront the Rhone bounded and roared, foaming in its southward race. Beyond the grim city spread the dark waters and the silence of Lake Leman. Beyond again, through the clear frosty air, against a darkening sky, towered the still gold and rosy snows of Savoy.
The sight, impressive enough, was specially welcome at the end of a day's ride through bitter weather and sore rough ways. As the traveler gazed, with eyes of satisfaction not unmixed with awe, a distant boom rolled through the still air.
Many experiences had Dick Wyatt gone through since he had left his peaceful island; among others the disastrous one of closed town-gates at fall of night. He spurred his tired mount, therefore; and it was with but a few minutes to spare that he reached the Porte de Cornevin and found himself inside the staid stronghold of Calvinism. Before being granted free entrance, he was suspiciously questioned by the sergeant of the burgher guard on his character, religion, and the purpose of his journeying—an examination which he passed with some difficulty, for French was still unready to his tongue. So soon, however, as it transpired that his business was with one Maître Todescan, the sour visage relaxed; he was not only admitted but sped on—any friend of worthy Master Todescan, Provost of the Town Companies, must be welcome in Geneva!
And so, all in the uncertain light of a Wintry orange afterglow, the last comer to the town found his way through the winding streets; past the old Castle of St. Gervais, by the Pont aux Mariniers over the thundering Rhone as it rushes out of the lake, across the isle, toward the steep rising Grand Rue, wherein—so had said the burgher sergeant—dwelt the great provost-at-arms, "at the sign of the Roy David, just a pistol-shot short of St. Germain Church."
Dick Wyatt, after the manner of men haunted by a fixed purpose, paid little heed to aught but what fell in with the main tenor of his thoughts. He marveled not at the prosperity of the noble Free City, at the orderly sober throng, the breath of peace that pervaded the place—unlike those airs of furtive merriment snatched between spells of disaster which marked the war-ridden towns he had recently passed through; he took scarce note of the houses, wondrous tall, showing at almost every floor a glow of fire or lamp that met you like a smile of welcome. But rather he marveled how a man of martial renown, such as the great Todescan, could find congenial dwelling among people where psalming and grave converse rather than the ringing of spurs and the cocking of beavers seemed the chief assertion of manliness.
And it made his heart leap, for all his weariness, as he halted at length before the Roy David, suddenly to hear, above the bustle of a hostelry at supper-time, the rousing clank of iron, the stamp of foot, the sharp cries, which tell of the fencing hour. The sounds proceeded from a row of windows on the first floor, lighted redly and wide open in spite of the great cold.
"So! Todescan at last!"
With an eager presentiment of all that he—well-prepared scholar if ever there was one—was soon to learn under those projecting gables, Dick Wyatt entered the inn. Little did he dream how fast his knowledge would grow that very night!
Mine host of the Roy David appraised the newcomer with one look of an experienced eye.
"Aye—faith! There is still accommodation, though my house is all but full. And you would have speech with Master Todescan? And, faith, I thought as much. Though what there is in our Todescan that you all should thus—and another Englishman too! But I, for one, have no call to grumble.… And I may make bold to guess further, my gentleman, that you desire speech of Todescan even before sight of supper? Eh? Said I truly?"
And without more ado the traveler was conducted up a winding stairway to the door of the fencing-room.
'Twas a long, low, beam-ceiled gallery, covering the whole depth of the house from high street to back lane; lit with four oil lamps; bare of all furniture but for a couple of forms and an arm-rack in the corner. The last lesson of the day was over. A heavy-looking youth had just drawn on his doublet and was adjusting its points, ever and anon wiping his face and the back of his neck, spite the icy blast pouring through the windows.
"Maître Todescan," cried mine host from the threshold, all professional cheeriness, "again I bring an English admirer—one, too, mark you, that can not wait another hour before saluting you! What a man you are, aha! No doubt you would, as usual, partake of supper together? I leave you. But the time to toss that basket of trout into the pan and to carbonade a rib of that veal—say I well? Aye, and a pitcher of the white wine of Morges—eh? I know, I know!"
Without waiting for reply, he retired, leaving Dick Wyatt face to face with his great man.
The first impression was curiously unpleasant, and Dick was seized with an unexpected revulsion—a sense of resentment as against something unnatural. Every master of the blade he had known in his days, ruffian at heart though he might be, had borne about him the note of joviality. But here was a saturnine visage with a vengeance! An unformed thought quickly took possession of the Englishman's mind; in practise with such a one, cunning strokes of fence would assume a new purpose; would savor more of cruelty and treachery than of skill!
As a fact, Maître Todescan's face displayed anything but cordiality at that moment. It was with the air of him who finds his time trespassed upon at a decidedly inopportune moment that he turned upon the visitor, looking deeply at him. With an engaging glibness, cultivated on repeated occasions, the youth fell to explaining his presence. For a while Todescan listened in silence; then suddenly seemed to make up his mind to more graciousness. A smile found its way to his lips, without, however, reaching the eyes, that remained filled as with some dark and absorbing speculation.
He was honored. He would—on the morrow—offer his humble services to the gentleman. Now, he must go forth; he had charge to-night of the burgher guard's watch. But to-morrow. … He bowed. There came a furtive look into the close-set eyes. It was happy for the stranger that he had just saved the hour of the setting of the watch. The days were of the shortest. Had he encountered any noticeable experience on his approach to Geneva? Which road had his been? From the Bern side? Ah, from the north!
He stood musing for a moment. Well, he must even crave the young master's leave—until the morrow.
He spoke with a conscious air which betrayed the tardy grafting of courtly manners upon an original stock of camp brutality. And Dick Wyatt, escorted down-stairs, politely but firmly shaken off at the kitchen door, as he watched the fencing-master wrap himself up scientifically in his great cloak and stride out into the night, had a fantastic impression as one who has just passed by an unknown personal danger.
In some dudgeon, with lingering regrets for the merry taverns of Paul's Chains (oh, how far they seemed!), he consumed his trout and drank his thin wine by himself. And soon after, the melancholy drone of curfew having sounded from a neighboring tower, he wended his way dejectedly to the bare and very cold room allotted to him just below the eaves.
But under the combined influence of bodily chill, overfatigue, and mental annoyance, it seemed as though the soothing of sleep were not to be granted that night. After a few hours of angry tossing, the youth made up his mind to defy the curfew laws, struck the flint, and once more lit the small length of tallow allotted to him.
Geneva at last!… Three months since he had started from England, but a few days after that tavern meeting which had fired his young blood, and, throughout, the burden of his thoughts had been Todescan—Todescan of Geneva! A long and tedious way it had been, with more than one unpleasant adventure. Laid by the heels at Cologne through some pernicious fever; hindered almost at every step by his ignorance of tongues, of travel.… But the goal was reached; Geneva at last!
Wrapped in his traveling-cloak, he began to rehearse the tale of his fencing knowledge, in preparation of the morrow's ordeal, when he should face, foiled rapier in hand, "the king of them all," as Captain Strongi'th'arm had dubbed this Todescan of Geneva.
After the manner of men enamored, living in dreams of their lady; of poets, haunted by rhymes and hits and metaphors; of misers, with thoughts ever circling round their treasures (madmen all, in their degree), so this youth, on whom the meretricious new-fangled rapier had cast her spell, had grown mad—mad as any lover, rhymester or harpagon; fencing-mad even as the Martius portrayed by Marston. No uncommon occurrence about these years! Not of lady's eyebrows or instep; not of dimples by rosy lips, ran his fevered thoughts, but of nattiest tricks with edge and point, of undiscovered wards of the swift blades, and of the deadly masters of swordland!
The few inches of candle supplied by the Roy David came abruptly to an end; the long unsnuffed wick collapsed, drowned its flame with a sizzle, and left him once more in darkness. Dick Wyatt was in that state of nocturnal lucidity of mind in which it seems verily as if sleep would never be known again in life. He remained as he was, sitting up in bed, gazing at some particular bright star that, between two gables, peered into the blackness of his room. In time the star progressed out of sight, and he had nothing left but to hearken to the all-pervading silence; that singular silence of an enclosed town buried in slumber on a night of frost when not even a prowling animal is about.
Into the stillness the tower-clock of a neighboring church dropped the stroke of one. The grave note reverberated with an odd emphasis; the pulsing vibrations hung lingering upon the air as if in warning. Strangely, the reminder of the hour appeared to break a spell. At first, to the musing listener, it was only as if that sense of death-like hush had departed. True, he could hear nothing; yet he felt as if, in the world around, were sounds that ought to be heard. Presently he realized that there was indeed something astir under the silent scintillation of the stars. Filled with an unaccountable sense of surprise, he sprang out of bed, and, standing tiptoe in the darkness, strained his ear to catch he knew not what. A moment later he had pushed open the casement and thrust his head into the cold night; a rumor without, very faint, intermittent, indefinable; into the midst of it, suddenly springing, human sounds; a sharp cry, pain or rage; a call; and then a shot, harquebus or pistol; another! Silence again, and now a clang that made the woodwork rattle. All was as clear to his mind's eye as if he saw; a culverin on the rampart had spoken. It was fight! It was a dead-of-night assault on the sleeping town!
The news began to pour like water from open sluices through the main ways. Drums, sharp and panting, ran north and west, checkering the night. One came drubbing up the High Street, and Dick bent out of his window to peer down. Nothing to be seen but a denser shadow in the dark, a faint whiteness—the skin of the drum. But out of the murk rose the cry, thrown out between the taps, strangled words from a throat out of all breath:
"To arms! To arms! To the Tertasse—the gate is taken! The Savoyards!"
Right and left casements clattered back; heads were thrust forth with much exchange of exclamation. Half-dressed men, many in naught but shoes and shirts, came hastening out of their houses, halbert or matchlock in hand, feverishly concerting as they scurried toward the west ramparts, whence the clamor upwelled. And presently, over all, the great bell of the Cathedral threw the clang and drone of the tocsin, lamentable, making the windows, the very rafters, shiver as if with terror in the dark.
Some new treachery of the ever-treacherous Ligue party—the ferocious mercenaries of the Duke of Savoy.… The sack of the town! … 'Twas a fearsome thing to contemplate—Les Savoyards! Awestruck voices cried the tidings from window to window.
Dick Wyatt understood but one thing; and a new spirit awoke in him. He thrust his feet into his list shoes—no time to pull on long boots—buckled his sword over a still unfastened doublet, and groped his way down the black stairs into the street; the house door was open. His host, loading a harquebus on the steps by the light of a lantern which the half-clad handmaid held up, shouted something to him as he passed out—something he could not understand.
He found himself swiftly caught by the ever-increasing stream flowing toward the lower town. Men moved like shadows. Here and there a lantern made a narrow circle of light. More shirts, vaguely white in the all but complete darkness, were to be met than doublets or cloaks; many a foot went bare, to save that priceless minute of time at the rampart that might decide between success or massacre. With jaws firmly set on the thought of the coming death-struggle (aye, and on the thought of children and women!) none found breath to spare for words. A halt was called at last, at the entrance, squat, thick-pillared, of some monstrous cavern—or so it seemed to Dick. Pungent into the crisp air spread the smell of apples, onions, straw.… Ah, the Market Hall! A man sprang into the midst of them, out of the black. His voice rang; a soldier's voice, accustomed to command:
"Back! To the Bastion de Rive, every man! Every man, I say! The attack at the Tertasse is but a feint. The enemy is at the Rive Gate! That is where men are wanted! Back!" He ran, flinging out his arms; and the whole posse turned before him as the flock before the sheep-dog. The light of a lantern fell upon a harsh thin face, upon gleaming small eyes. 'Twas Todescan the Provost.
Dick Wyatt's soul leaped to the splendid mastery of the soldier in the emergency. Here was the champion in his right place; here the leader for him; here a gorgeous chance to take his first lesson from the terrible blade!
Upon the very spring of this elation fell a sudden chilling doubt. The last of the crowd had moved lustily up the narrow street once more, but Todescan had stopped short; and, with a stride to one side and a swift glance from right to left, he had dived down an alley. After a second's hesitation, moved by uneasy curiosity, Wyatt bounded forward in his wake, found the mouth of the entry, and noiselessly followed in pursuit.
The alley, narrow, winding, and all but closed from the skies by overhanging eaves, was pitch-dark. But the rapid, assured footsteps in front guided him and he was able to thread his way. At a turn of the lane a vague lifting of the gloom told of a more open space; and, against the lighter background, the black bulk of his man became perceptible. A vague yet overpowering suspicion caused Dick Wyatt to remain concealed. Todescan had halted. His steel cap, catching the glint of starlight, revealed furtive movements as of one peering and hearkening. Against the faintly luminous sky, a crenelated outline, cut high above, told the nature of the place—an inner patrolway at the foot of the town walls. The night all around was now alive with rumor, but this spot still held silence and emptiness. With a dart, like a serpent, Todescan suddenly stooped, and from under a pile of stones (as far as the listener could judge) dragged forth some heavy object.
Wyatt watched, held by the horrid suspicion that gripped him ever more sickeningly. Todescan was fiercely busy. There came a thud, as though the unknown thing that was so heavy and clanked on the cobbles as it moved, were being thrust against a door. And now, out of the darkness danced the red sparkle of flint and steel. A faint point sprang and remained aglow. Thereafter, more sparkle and then a steady fizzle.
Wyatt was no soldier, but he knew the quick-match and the little hissing fire-snake whispered of dire treachery. With his evil glimmer it kindled lurid understanding in his brain. An unguarded postern in the ramparts, a traitor behind it, a petard to blow the breach!
The young man's blood rose in fury. He drew his sword; his cry rang out incoherently:
"Oh, base and murderous! Treachery! Hold, rogue, traitor, renegade rogue! Help there! O sweet Jesu!"
The English words could be but sounds to the knave; but their clamor was eloquent. Todescan started, wheeled round; his blade leaped forth. The scintillation of the match cast the merest trembling gleam, yet he recognized the youth; and, cursing him blasphemously for an English fool, opposed his headlong attack with contemptuous yet vindictive mastery.
For a single moment, that yet seemed, in its tension, to pass the bounds of time, as Wyatt found himself under the glare—felt rather than seen—of those sinister eyes that from the first had struck a chill to his soul, the full realization of his madness swept upon him. He was challenging to the death the world's greatest swordsman; all his own science served but to emphasize his sense of appalling helplessness. But, even at the first meeting of blades, the misgiving vanished. His spirit rose to exaltation, stimulated by the very feeling of his opponent's superb authority. His sword seemed to be less combated than taken possession of; stimulated, too, by the low chuckle that Todescan gave. The utter scorn of it—so might a demon laugh in the dark, exulting in the power of his own soul!
Upon a singular trick of the imagination, as in the flash of a vision, he was once more in the old fencing-room of Paul's Chains, in the "Friars"—there rose the great yellow windows looking Thamesward, the paneled walls, the hacked pillars—and there, over the point of his own foiled rapier, the kindly, keen face of his revered master, of Saviolo, the mirror of chivalrous courtesy. Hark to his voice, admonitory yet encouraging:
"Eh la! point in line, figlio mio; ever in line! And ever lower than the wrist! Lower—lower, good lad! Thumb down, and up with the little finger, elbow out, nearly straight! So—and I promise thee, ne'er a blade in the world shall surprise thy ward!"
As if in obedience, he swiftly fell into the well-practised expectant guard. Even as he did so, there was a jerk—it was almost like an exclamation of wonder and disappointment—in the steel that pressed on his own; and Dick Wyatt was back again, fighting for his life, the Genevan cobblestones under his feet, the glimmer of the quick-match and its steady hiss—frightful menace!—warning him to haste! He gripped the ground in his soft shoes (a blessing it was he had not waited to don the great boots!). He set his teeth. Never, for one breathing-space, did the terrible long-blade release his own. He felt it gliding, seeking to bind, fiercely caressing—the deadly spring behind a tiger's crouch—felt the invincible unknown thrust ready against the first weakening. And that weakening was coming apace! It was all he could do to hold his opposition. As a kind of spell, cast by the fingers of steel and the superhuman flexibility of his opponent's wrist, a palsy was creeping up his outstretched arm. And one twitch of relaxation, he knew, and he was sped! Now, whether from the depth of his own need, or whether the spirit of the master were hovering over a beloved scholar in his dire extremity—who shall say?—certain it was that the very tones of Saviolo were now recalling to Wyatt's brain a favorite axiom of the fence-school:
"Chi para, busca; chi tira, tocca!" (He who parries, only seeketh; he who thrusts finds!)
It was to the youth as if a flame had been lit in his soul. Why wait in anguish to parry a coming secret thrust, when he could still himself strike? Up he sprang; brain and eye, wrist and nimble feet in magnificent concert. To his dying day, Dick swore that, for the instant, he saw in the dark, even to the dreadful grin on the face opposite to him. His ear, strained to the same marvel of keenness, caught the sound of a catching breath—not his own. Exultant, he thrust; out went Saviolo's favorite botta lunga supramano!
It was on the very dart of Todescan's stroke , which leaped out like a bolt from ambush—but one splinter of a second too late! Todescan's own pass: the fierce, jerky binding, the incredible turn of the wrist inward, the infallible estocade that was to have driven the point irremediably under the armpit and let free the overweening soul that dared oppose him in earnest! There was a sinister grating of steel, and the edge of the menacing blade glided, harmless, by Wyatt's side; but his own rapier, driven straight, heart-high, went home. Todescan, caught on the start of his own lunge, actually ran upon the point!
At any other moment, the horrible ease with which his steel traversed living flesh would have sickened Dick Wyatt, but now there was nothing but fierce leaping triumph in his blood; the great gaunt figure had stopped dead-short. A broken curse, a groan ending in a long sigh, and the Provost of Geneva fell at the feet of the bewildered London apprentice, whose bright blade was now black to within a foot of the hilt.
"Master Vincent Saviolo—have thanks!" cried the youth and waved the victorious weapon at the stars. Even as he did so, a drop falling from it glittered, a dreadful red, in the light of the quick-match. "My God!" he called out, upon a new thought; flung the good sword from him, and was down on his knees, tearing like one possessed at the last inch of the burning rope.
The urgency of the peril, for he had no mind to see the fruits of his great combat thrown away, lent a desperate sureness to his effort. In another instant he had sprung up again and was stamping the last spark under foot. Then he stood and breathed deeply, feeling dazed, almost as in a dream.
Hemmed in by the rumors, this little square under the bastion was still wrapped in stillness—a stillness that suddenly grew awful to Dick as he thought of the dead man. It was the first time he had sped a soul. In the cant of rufflers, this was "his first man." Yonder black heap—that was he who had been Todescan, a name Dick had never spoken but with bated breath!
The sight of torches bobbing at the far depth of the wall lane, the sound of running steps and voices uplifted, startled him from his mood. With a sudden vividness he saw his own peril. To be found alone with the corpse of the honored Provost, near the tell-tale petard and the remains of the quick-match, he, a stranger just arrived in the city, without a single friend, without even speech to explain or defend himself—his doom as spy, traitor, and murderer would be trebly sealed! He hastily picked up his rapier, and made a wildcat spring up the steps that led to the battlements, reaching the black shelter of the platform only just in time.
There, although prudence urged a noiseless flight along the walls to some farther quarter of the town where, unnoticed, he might mix with the throng, he was fain to sit down and gather strength, for shaking knees and laboring heart refused service. He dropped on the sill of an empty gun embrasure, and listened. Within the walls the steps and voices were drawing near the spot where the body lay. Outward, beyond the moat, stretched the fields under the starlight. Frogs were croaking with strange persistence. All at once the lane below him was filled with new sounds, exclamations, hurried steps, a clang as of a falling pike. Impelled by a desperate curiosity he crept back to the edge of the platform and looked down.
Luridly illumined by the glare of torches, he could see a party of disheveled, anxious-faced burghers, a score or so of them, armed with harquebus or halbert, clustered together. One rushed, cursing, from the petard at the postern to the body of Todescan. Another was shaking his fist upward as to some unseen enemy. Dick was preparing to crawl to some safer hiding-place, when it was borne in upon him, to his utter astonishment, that the slayer of the Town Provost was already vindicated. Little French had he, true, but his wits were sharpened by danger and deed and by his knowledge of the truth in this matter. One, who seemed to be the leader of the party, was speaking, emphasizing his words by vindictive thumps of his clinched hand on his palm:
"He sent us to the Bastion de Rives—there was no enemy there! That was his treachery! Todescan has betrayed us—but God has avenged!"
And deep-mouthed, thrice repeated, came the words:
"Todescan the traitor!"
Dick Wyatt straightened himself with a long sigh of relief. Yet he deemed it still best play to withdraw unseen from the neighborhood of these hard-pressed, excited men. Stealthily he wiped his blade: and, in disgust, flung the bloody kerchief over the wall into the ditch.
Instantly he was struck by the singular cessation of the obtrusive frog-croaking. He paused a moment, wondering. Then, as though the throwing of a kerchief had been an expected signal, from the darkness without a muffled call came up the wall:
"Eh, is it you at last, Espingola! Are you ready?"
At once one of the words evoked the memory of old Strongi'th'arm: "a corporal in Piedmont they called Espingola"—had said the old man of travels; and he thrust his head through the embrasure and peered into the moat. Yonder, in sooth, huddled at the foot of the rampart—in their black armor, darker shadows upon the gloom—lay a party of the Savoyards.
Boyish Dick forgot his wise resolution; all thoughts of safety, of self-preservation, evaporated. He sheathed his rapier and rushed back boldly to the platform's edge.
"Ho, there, my men!" he shouted in sturdy English to the party that was, even then, hastily moving on. "Here, here! The enemy is yonder!"
All torches were lifted, all heads looked up in astonishment. He pointed and waved vehemently, and summoned a scrap of their language to his tongue:
"L'ennemi! l'ennemi! Là—Là!"
Rapidly the burghers lined the parapet. Those outside who had expected a secret ally to beckon from the breach were confronted by defenders. Stealth and silence were of no further avail; the Savoyards upsprang. The harquebusade began.
THE story of the escalade of Geneva has become matter of history. Widespread in all Protestant countries has been the bitter tale of that night surprise, treacherously planned in the midst of proclaimed peace. And all who heard of it know how nigh the vile plan came to fruition; how narrow, for one panting hour, remained the margin between victorious repulse and annihilation; what nameless orgies of blood, lust and rapine were, by the Duke's explicit orders, to follow on the shout of "The city is taken."
Once indeed that cry of terror was actually raised, to strike ice-cold to many an innocent heart. And no doubt it would have been justified, had all the concerted measures of assailants without and confederates within come to their expected issue—of which the most pregnant was the blowing up of the forgotten little postern under the Bastion de l'Oye!
But as yet Dick Wyatt knew naught of all this. Toward the fourth hour of the morning when the last gun on the south walls had vomited its last shot at the retreating enemy; when the Savoyard army had vanished into the darkness whence it had sprung, the young man, sitting on a heap of rubbish, exhausted, dazed with fight, had not yet plumbed the mystery of the night's monstrous doings. He had had a glut of sword work; not, indeed, of the subtle fencing tricks of his dreams, but of furious strokes, by mere fighting man's instinct, all in the light of nature; here falling on morion or corselet, there roughly warding a push of pike. The struggle was over; but about him turmoil was still seething. The whole town was in the street, yet in the midst of the throng he was in solitude. Each in the crowd was moved to exultation or thanksgiving, to lament or solicitude for friend and kin; but he had no friend among them; none thought of dropping him a word of kindness. By the light of one of those street fires that had been kindled wherever possible until the opening of the blessed eye of day, he was sullenly attending to sundry slight wounds that now had begun to stiffen and smart. A morose depression gathered upon him.
A hand was clapped on his shoulder:
"Why, Dick Wyatt! Hast also come to Geneva?"
He had not heard the beloved tongue from a true English mouth these weary months. His heart leaped. He sprang up. Oh, marvel! No less a man than Master Beckett! Master Beckett torn in attire and powder-stained; mocking, yet with a tender gleam in the eye. Their hands met.
"I have looked for thee, Dick, among the dead, the maimed, and the sound, and here art thou at last!"
"How now—yet you knew me not here?"
"Nay, an hour ago I never dreamed of Dick Wyatt. But down yonder, at the Tertasse Gate, where the croaking frogs were made at last to choose between jump the wall again or take our steel, there was one burgher—a tall man, by the mass, but yet he owed something to the timely help of my rapier. 'Grand mercy!' saith he. 'You English are rude escrimeurs' (thus they call a fencer, Dick); 'we left one on the Bastion de l'Oye. He hath little French, but he drummed right heartily on the black harness of the Savoyard.' 'An Englishman?' says I. And there being no more work to do I looked for him who had little French lest he want succor or friendly word, but never thinking of thee! What make you from Lombard Street, Dick Wyatt?"
"Aye—and what make you in Geneva from the Temple, Master Beckett?"
The retort was made smiling. Gone was melancholy; gone, too, was the rivalry that had burned sore in each heart against the other. They stood, eye in eye. Presently they both laughed; the same thought was in their minds.
"So! In truth they did speak of another Englishman," said Dick.
"'They' spoke, say'st thou? Who spoke?"
"In Todescan's fence-room," said Wyatt gravely.
Master Beckett mused a moment. "When came you to Geneva, friend Dick?" he asked.
"Yesterday, at nightfall."
A great astonishment writ itself upon the Templar's countenance.
"Last night! Plague on thee, Dick!" he went on banteringly as he marked the other's enigmatic smile, "but thou wast in monstrous haste! Well—come. 'Tis fair time to go crack a quart for a morning draft; or so at least 'twould be in London. Todescan?" he chuckled. "I have news for thee, Dick. But come."
Arm in arm they made their way to the nearest tavern; and there, seated at a retired table, with a stoup of warm wine and a white loaf between them, resumed converse. "'Twas venturesome of thee, Dick, to come seeking knowledge so far," quoth Beckett.
"You came as far, methinks," was the good-humored retort. Dick Wyatt had never felt himself a match for his rival in words. But at this game of friendly mockery he held to-day the highest card in reserve.
"Aye, so," said the Templar lightly. "But with me the enterprise was less. I have a gift of tongues—and friends in the university. 'Twas easy. But since start you did, 'twas a fault not to have started sooner—I do assure thee," he added with meaning. "I left on this quest it comes nigh three months since."
And then, with gusto, did he relate the story of a long pilgrimage of fence. Marvelous were the names falling sonorously from his tongue; every master mentioned by Captain Strongi'th'arm, and some others to boot. But it was anent his stay in this very city that he waxed most eloquent: Todescan, traitor or no, had proved the arch-master, the demigod of the blade!
"Aye, Dick, 'twas pity thou camest not sooner! Canst scarce, now, learn the 'thunderbolt of Todescan,' this invisible sudden death that laughs at plate or gorget. Canst indeed never learn it—save, of course, from me, when the time is ripe."
"Save from you, Master Beckett?"
"Yes, Diccon, save from me. The secret died to-night; Todescan was killed on the walls!"
Master Beckett, not unnaturally, attributed to disappointment the silence in which his rival received the news.
Dick Wyatt was reflectively rubbing his chin. For one brief instant he had burned to cap, by an obvious, crushing retort, his friend's ill-concealed exultation. But he now resolutely folded his lips upon his secret—telling himself that, in Beckett's own phrase, the time was not yet ripe. Since they were yet to meet in friendly contest of skill, he would reserve the story of the momentous duel until the moment of victory—for, of a surety, on the day of trial he would be met again by this thunderbolt of Todescan, and how could he doubt now that he must prove victorious on the lesser as on the greater issue?
Assuming all the air of one who knows he has been checkmated, he changed the drift of the talk.
III
SOME three months later, on the very morning of their return to London, Dick and Master Beckett together sought the Bolt-in-Tun. They passed through its portals—this time with never one of your elaborate tricks of courtesy as to precedence, but the taller with his arm on the other's shoulder—and found the old place humming, as on the day when last they had seen it, with the talk of a death—a death of far other importance even than that of Master Vincent. England's great Queen had passed away; ill filled was her place by a little, ungainly Scot.
The comrades were greeted with a shout. 'Twas six months since they had been seen in Ludgate. Queries assailed them on every side; but, by tacit agreement, they kept their own counsel. True Englishmen, whose prowess was so soon to be tested in loyal public contest, they had no mind for boasting of knowledge acquired, after the fashion of your tavern-haunting gull. But, at length, so much leaked out: they had been preparing, each after his own fancy, for the great day of my Lord of Pembroke's prize-playing, in honor of Saviolo.
It was Beckett dropped the information—a trifle loftily, perhaps, from the height of his traveled experience. He thought to impress his stay-at-home friends. The announcement was met, first by silence, in which eyebrows were raised and glances exchanged; then out broke a hubbub—banter, mockery, condolence. Poor lads! these long six months preparing! And here was one who knew, from knowledge certain, that public prize-playing would never more be seen in Merry England!
The one who knew (from Whitehall he) spake: His new Majesty loathed swordsmen's shows, and forbade them. He could not look on a blade without shudder. Nay, if he had to knight a man, he must needs avert his eyes so doing.
Dick and the Templar stared at each other. Were the friendly rivals glad or sorry? They scarce knew. Dick took a deep breath.
And now, from the head of the table—his place by rights it seemed to have become—up spoke Captain Strongi'th'arm. From the moment he had recognized the young men, he had remained watching and listening in unwonted silence. His single eye was more commanding than ever. He tapped the table with his two fingers, and there fell a stillness in the room. He spoke of kings and of her who was gone: of Mary of Scotland and of many instances he had known, at home and abroad, of men like the new King James, her son, frighted for life before their birth by a woman's terror. Then, from Jamie's horror of a drawn blade, came he to talk of fight and prize-playing and the like—thence to his darling theme: the great Masters of the Sword, alive or dead.
"Aye, young masters, you may have had your snippets of travel; but had ye known the tall men, the great days! There was Cavalcabo, mark you, the mighty Italian; but he is dust. Now, the nearest to him, in subtilty, was Eisenkopf (of Mainz in the Palatinate). He, for all his High-Dutch name, was from the south also: Capoferro was he . Now the Eisenkopf had a certain thrust he called Pigliafilo——"
"I know the trick," said Beckett, over his can.
Captain Strongi'th'arm raised an eyebrow.
"Yet, to my mind," he went on, unheeding, "ne'er so great a man at the rapier—that is, for the single duello—as Petty Jean, in Paris. He it was devised the botle de Nevers——"
"Aye"—from the Templar again. "Petty John taught it well. But he teaches at Lyons now."
The Captain's eye rolled a little redly upon the fair, cool youth; 'twas scarce wholesome, for one of so few years, to know so much, to be so sure of speech. He must be set down.
"Ha, but only when a man has measured blades with Thibault of Antwerp, Thibault, the heritor of Carranza's own science, all by mathematical logic, squares and tangents to the circumference"—he kept his eye severely upon Beckett, as the young man showed signs of opening his mouth again—"or eke with Meister Joachim of Strasburg on the Rhine, whose lesson was rhythmic and required for its mastery the lilt of fife and taber.—I mind me of a plaguy round-cut he would engineer on your extended arm, that he had christened estramasson de Manchette; it would do for you, by neat rapier-slicing, what the Spanish dog's halbert did for this hand, at the palisado of Pamplona——"
"Saving your experience, good Captain," interrupted Beckett demurely, "you mistake. Estramasson is the Sieur Thibault's own device, by rule geometrical. I have practised both with him and with Master Joachim."
The veteran's gathering testiness exploded. He rapped out a parcel of rare outlandish oaths and spluttered the name of Todescan. Todescan, to his mind, the very angel—the very devil of the sword! Who had not faced Todescan of Geneva knew naught of finality in fencing. Todescan's noted thrust——
Here, once again, was Master Beckett's moment to insert (with pardonable pride) the story of his acquired gains in far Geneva. He parted his lips to speak, his brown eyes sparkling, his frank smile flashing.
But, subtly, in a delicate, insinuating voice that dropped into the brief moment of silence allowed by Captain Strongi'th'arm's pause for breath, Dick Wyatt forestalled him:
"Todescan, aye—of Geneva. And his noted thrust: at the armpit, on a binding of the blade, thus—" He made a spiral movement with his extended wrist, and glanced for one instant slily at Beckett's amazed face. "Todescan of Geneva—'twas I killed him. Yea"—and this was addressed more specially to Captain Strongi'th'arm—"ran him up to the hilts, with Master Vincent's own punta riversa!"
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse