From that moment he forced the fighting, attacking with furious vigor and astonishing rapidity, so that the great master-at-arms soon found that even he had enough to do simply to stand it out on the defensive. Yet Scarlett smiled, too, for he thought that this bout of youthful fury would soon wear itself down, and that then he would easily enough get in his favorite deadly thrust in quart, to which no answer had ever yet been discovered.
But Walter never gave him time; for again the acrid laugh came from the dark passage and set all the young man's blood tingling to put a sword deep in the traitor's throat, and then, if need be, die with his foot on his enemy's breast. He sped two thrusts one after the other so swiftly that Scarlett, countering over-late for the first, had to leap back in order to measure his distance for the second. In so doing his foot slipped, and his blade, caught unexpectedly by Lochinvar's, went ringing against the ceiling and fell on the floor. Walter's point was at his breast the next moment.
"Yield!" said Walter; "I hold you to your word. You are at my mercy."
"I yield," said Scarlett. "It was well done. Never before in any land was I thus vanquished in a fair fight."
CHAPTER V
HAXO THE BULL INTERFERES
Walter bowed and returned him his sword, holding it by the blade.
"And now, Lieutenant Scarlett," he said, "I desire to ride back to Amersfort, and you, I doubt not, wish as eagerly to return whence you came – by sea to Flanders, as I guess. I shall be grateful, therefore, if you will draw off your company, and give an order that my horse be brought to that door which is in possession of your own men."
At this moment Haxo the Bull stepped into the room.
"Not so fast by a great deal, master-fighter with windlestraws," he cried. "If it have pleased this friend of yours and traitorous officer of the King of France to make a public bargain upon the issue of a private duel, that has nothing to do with me. There are many other fights to be fought ere you leave this house with the papers safe in your pocket. Listen," he continued, addressing the officers and soldiers standing in the opposite doorway behind Lieutenant Scarlett: "are you to lose your reward and be left without reason or remedy here in the very heart of an enemy's country – your work undone, your doom sealed? For if ye let him escape, this fellow will instantly set the prince's horsemen or his swift Dutch ships upon your track. Better to kill him and take his papers without delay, when rewards and promotions will assuredly be yours on your return to your master."
It was easy to see that this harangue had not been the inspiration of Haxo himself, for he delivered it, now trippingly and now haltingly, like a schoolboy who does not know the meaning of his lesson. But yet it was perfectly comprehensible to all in the room, and Wat could see that the purport of it moved the officers and men greatly. The wide archway behind the table from which the arras had been drawn back was now thronged with faces.
Wat Gordon stood aside whistling an air softly, like one who waits for a discussion to be concluded in which he has no interest. He had not so much as looked at Haxo the Bull while he was speaking.
But John Scarlett grew redder and redder as he listened, and so soon as the butcher was finished he started towards him so abruptly and fiercely that that worthy gat himself incontinently behind the weapons of his allies, the Calf and the Killer, with an alacrity which seemed quite disproportionate to his physical condition.
"I am the commander here," Scarlett cried, "and I am bound by my promise. I am determined to let this man go according to my word. Stand back there!"
But the elder of the two French officers came forward.
He saluted Scarlett and addressed himself directly to him.
"Lieutenant Scarlett," he said, "I am your equal in rank though not in standing. We were sent here under your orders to obtain certain despatches of great importance to our general and to the coming campaign. We shall therefore be compelled to take this man with us, with all the papers in his possession, and to report your conduct to the commander at headquarters."
His words appeared first to amuse and then to infuriate John Scarlett.
Striking suddenly at the triple candlestick on his right, he leaped over the table, crying, "Down with the lights! I am with you, Wat Gordon. Through the door and have at them out into the open. It is your only chance."
Wat, whose sword was ready in his hand, struck sideways at the other group of lights and sent them crashing to the floor. Most of these went out at once in their fall, but one or two continued to burn for a moment with a faint light as they lay among the trampling feet. Wat threw himself at the doorway in which he had heard the laugh, and through which Scarlett had preceded him a moment before. Wat could hear that valiant sworder somewhere in front of him, striking good blows and swearing, "Out with you, devil's brats!" at the top of his voice. So when he reached the end of the passage he found at the outer door Scarlett making brisk play with four or five men, who were endeavoring to hem him into a narrow space where he should not have the liberty of his sword-arm.
Wat ranged himself beside his late enemy, the two long blades began to flicker fatally in the starlight, and the hurt men to cry out and stagger away. Then quite unexpectedly the crowd in front broke and fled.
"Get on your horse, Wat!" Scarlett cried. "I can keep the door against these loons of mine – at least till you are well out of the way."
There were two good horses, one on either side of the doorway – Wat's, and that upon which Haxo had ridden. Wat sprang upon his own, and, with a cut of his sword, Scarlett divided the halter. The horse wheeled and set off at a gallop through the sand-hills. Yet he went reluctantly, for, had it not been for the safety of his papers, Wat would gladly have stayed and helped John Scarlett to engage the whole of the army of France, with any number of Bulls and Killers in addition thereto.
For, as he vanished into the black night, he could hear John Scarlett advising the first man who desired three feet of cold steel through his vitals to step up and be accommodated. And as he turned eastward towards Amersfort, riding beneath the silent bulk of the old castle of Brederode, he heard again the clash of iron and the cry of pain which he knew so well. He smiled a little grimly, and wished nothing better than that his papers had been delivered, and he again at work at his old master's elbow.
Presently, however, having, as it seemed to him, left all possibility of pursuit behind, Wat put his horse into an easier pace, and rode on by silent and unfrequented paths towards the east, judging his direction by the stars – which had been an old study of his when it was his hap to take to the heather in the black days of the Covenant in Scotland.
As he went he became aware of the noise of a horse galloping swiftly behind him. He drew his sword and stood on the defence, lest the sound should betoken a new danger; but presently he heard a voice calling his own name loudly:
"Wat Gordon! I say, Wat Gordon!"
It was the voice of Jack Scarlett, his late enemy and present deliverer.
He rode up beside Walter, very strange to look upon, clad in some suit of white or pale blanket-color that glimmered in the dusk of the night.
"I gave half a dozen of the rascals that which it will be two days or they get the better of, I'se warrant," he said, chuckling to himself;