The Point Of Honor: A Military Tale Page 4

order to avoid impaling his recklessadversary like a beetle for a cabinet of specimens. The result was that,misapprehending the motive, Lieutenant Feraud, giving vent to triumphantsnarls, pressed his attack with renewed vigour.

  This enraged animal, thought D'Hubert, will have me against the walldirectly. He imagined himself much closer to the house than he was; andhe dared not turn his head, such an act under the circumstances beingequivalent to deliberate suicide. It seemed to him that he waskeeping his adversary off with his eyes much more than with his point.Lieutenant Feraud crouched and bounded with a tigerish, ferociousagility--enough to trouble the stoutest heart. But what was moreappalling than the fury of a wild beast accomplishing in all innocenceof heart a natural function, was the fixity of savage purpose manalone is capable of displaying. Lieutenant D'Hubert in the midst ofhis worldly preoccupations perceived it at last. It was an absurd anddamaging affair to be drawn into. But whatever silly intention thefellow had started with, it was clear that by this time he meant tokill--nothing else. He meant it with an intensity of will utterly beyondthe inferior faculties of a tiger.

  As is the case with constitutionally brave men, the full view of thedanger interested Lieutenant D'Hubert. And directly he got properlyinterested, the length of his arm and the coolness of his head told inhis favour. It was the turn of Lieutenant Feraud to recoil. He did thiswith a blood-curdling grunt of baffled rage. He made a swift feint andthen rushed straight forward.

  "Ah! you would, would you?" Lieutenant D'Hubert exclaimed mentally tohimself. The combat had lasted nearly two minutes, time enough for anyman to get embittered, apart from the merits of the quarrel. And all atonce it was over. Trying to close breast to breast under his adversary'sguard, Lieutenant Feraud received a slash on his shortened arm. He didnot feel it in the least, but it checked his rush, and his feet slippingon the gravel, he fell backward with great violence. The shockjarred his boiling brain into the perfect quietude of insensibility.Simultaneously with his fall the pretty servant girl shriekedpiercingly; but the old maiden lady at the window ceased her scoldingand with great presence of mind began to cross herself.

  In the first moment, seeing his adversary lying perfectly still, hisface to the sky and his toes turned up, Lieutenant D'Hubert thought hehad killed him outright. The impression of having slashed hard enoughto cut his man clean in two abode with him for awhile in an exaggeratedimpression of the right good will he had put into the blow. He went downon his knees by the side of the prostrate body. Discovering that noteven the arm was severed, a slight sense of disappointment mingled withthe feeling of relief. But, indeed, he did not want the death of thatsinner. The affair was ugly enough as it stood. Lieutenant D'Hubertaddressed himself at once to the task of stopping the bleeding. In thistask it was his fate to be ridiculously impeded by the pretty maid. Thegirl, filling the garden with cries for help, flung herself upon hisdefenceless back and, twining her fingers in his hair, tugged at hishead. Why she should choose to hinder him at this precise moment hecould not in the least understand. He did not try. It was all likea very wicked and harassing dream. Twice, to save himself from beingpulled over, he had to rise and throw her off. He did this stoically,without a word, kneeling down again at once to go on with his work. Butwhen the work was done he seized both her arms and held them down. Hercap was half off, her face was red, her eyes glared with crazy boldness.He looked mildly into them while she called him a wretch, a traitor anda murderer many times in succession. This did not annoy him so much asthe conviction that in her scurries she had managed to scratch his faceabundantly. Ridicule would be added to the scandal of the story. Heimagined it making its way through the garrison, through the whole army,with every possible distortion of motive and sentiment and circumstance,spreading a doubt upon the sanity of his conduct and the distinction ofhis taste even into the very bosom of his honourable family. It was allvery well for that fellow Feraud, who had no connections, no familyto speak of, and no quality but courage which, anyhow, was a matterof course, and possessed by every single trooper in the whole mass ofFrench cavalry. Still holding the wrists of the girl in a strong grip,Lieutenant D'Hubert looked over his shoulder. Lieutenant Feraud hadopened his eyes. He did not move. Like a man just waking from a deepsleep he stared with a drowsy expression at the evening sky.

  Lieutenant D'Hubert's urgent shouts to the old gardener produced noeffect--not so much as to make him shut his toothless mouth. Thenhe remembered that the man was stone deaf. All that time the girl,attempting to free her wrists, struggled, not with maidenly coyness butlike a sort of pretty dumb fury, not even refraining from kickinghis shins now and then. He continued to hold her as if in a vice, hisinstinct telling him that were he to let her go she would fly at hiseyes. But he was greatly humiliated by his position. At last she gaveup, more exhausted than appeased, he feared. Nevertheless he attemptedto get out of this wicked dream by way of negotiation.

  "Listen to me," he said as calmly as he could. "Will you promise to runfor a surgeon if I let you go?"

  He was profoundly afflicted when, panting, sobbing, and choking, shemade it clear that she would do nothing of the kind. On the contrary,her incoherent intentions were to remain in the garden and fight withher nails and her teeth for the protection of the prostrate man. Thiswas horrible.

  "My dear child," he cried in despair, "is it possible that you think mecapable of murdering a wounded adversary? Is it.... Be quiet, you littlewildcat, you," he added.

  She struggled. A thick sleepy voice said behind him:

  "What are you up to with that girl?"

  Lieutenant Feraud had raised himself on his good arm. He was lookingsleepily at his other arm, at the mess of blood on his uniform, at asmall red pool on the ground, at his sabre lying a foot away on thepath. Then he laid himself down gently again to think it all out as faras a thundering headache would permit of mental operations.

  Lieutenant D'Hubert released the girl's wrists. She flew away down thepath and crouched wildly by the side of the vanquished warrior. Theshades of night were falling on the little trim garden with thistouching group whence proceeded low murmurs of sorrow and compassionwith other feeble sounds of a different character as if an imperfectlyawake invalid were trying to swear. Lieutenant D'Hubert went away, tooexasperated to care what would happen.

  He passed through the silent house and congratulated himself upon thedusk concealing his gory hands and scratched face from the passers-by.But this story could by no means be concealed. He dreaded the discreditand ridicule above everything, and was painfully aware of sneakingthrough the back streets to his quarters. In one of these quiet sidestreets the sounds of a flute coming out of the open window of a lightedupstairs room in a modest house interrupted his dismal reflections. Itwas being played with a deliberate, persevering virtuosity, and throughthe _fioritures_ of the tune one could even hear the thump of the footbeating time on the floor.

  Lieutenant D'Hubert shouted a name which was that of an army surgeonwhom he knew fairly well. The sounds of the flute ceased and themusician appeared at the window, his instrument still in his hand,peering into the street.

  "Who calls? You, D'Hubert! What brings you this way?"

  He did not like to be disturbed when he was playing the flute. He was aman whose hair had turned gray already in the thankless task of tying upwounds on battlefields where others reaped advancement and glory.

  "I want you to go at once and see Feraud. You know Lieutenant Feraud? Helives down the second street. It's but a step from here."

  "What's the matter with him?"

  "Wounded."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Sure!" cried D'Hubert. "I come from there."

  "That's amusing," said the elderly surgeon. Amusing was his favouriteword; but the expression of his face when he pronounced it nevercorresponded. He was a stolid man. "Come in," he added. "I'll get readyin a moment."

  "Thanks. I will. I want to wash my hands in your room."

  Lieutenant D'Hubert found the surgeon occupied in unscrew
ing his fluteand packing the pieces methodically in a velvet-lined case. He turnedhis head.

  "Water there--in the corner. Your hands do want washing."

  "I've stopped the bleeding," said Lieutenant D'Hubert. "But you hadbetter make haste. It's rather more than ten minutes ago, you know."

  The surgeon did not hurry his movements.

  "What's the matter? Dressing came off? That's amusing. I've been busyin the hospital all day, but somebody has told me that he hadn't ascratch."

  "Not the same duel probably," growled moodily Lieutenant D'Hubert,wiping his hands on a coarse towel.

  "Not the same.... What? Another? It would take the very devil to makeme go out twice in one day." He looked narrowly