'Then say the word!' Marianne cried. 'Say it and be done, for no power on earth will induce me to go with you. You are the most despicable person of my acquaintance. Make them kill me! I hate you—'
'Be quiet!' Jason ordered her roughly. 'I've already told you this is a matter between men. And you, sir, I'll have you know that I propose a third course. We will fight here and now. You seem very ready to forget that you left Paris within a few hours of calling me out and that I have every right to call you a coward.'
'When the Tsar commands, I obey. I am a soldier first and foremost. I was obliged to leave, much to my regret, but I repeat, sir, you shall have your satisfaction tonight.'
'No, I will have it now. Damnation, Count Chernychev, it's no easy task to get you to fight. But perhaps this will do it.' And with that Jason struck the Russian two swift, glancing blows across the face. Chernychev went very pale.
'Now,' Jason asked, almost pleasantly, 'will you fight?'
The Count's face was waxen white against the dark green of his uniform. His nostrils were pinched and he seemed to have difficulty with his breathing. He looked as if he were about to be sick.
'Yes,' he hissed at last through clenched teeth. 'Give me time to get my troop on its way and then we'll fight!'
In another moment the road was cleared and the cossacks had ridden off, with thunderous cries of encouragement, leaving only a dozen of their number and a youthful, beardless captain remaining. Chernychev turned to take his leave of the priest with whom he had been talking when Marianne bumped into him but he had already gone inside, shocked either by the violent turn events seemed to be taking or by his fellow-countryman's behaviour towards the unknown woman, and the monastery doors had closed silently behind him. The Count shrugged with an air of annoyance and muttered something under his breath. Then he turned back to his adversary.
'Come,' he said. 'At the end of that side street you see there is a small square in between the monastery wall and the gardens of two large private houses. It is very quiet and will serve our purpose admirably. Prince Aksakov will see to the lady.' The youthful captain thus indicated lapsed momentarily from the military rigidity of his stance and hurriedly offered his arm to the half-fainting Marianne.
'If you please, Madame,' he said in fluent, virtually accentless French, bowing with unexpected grace. This drew a bark of laughter from Chernychev.
'You may address the lady as Serene Highness, my dear Boris,' he said sardonically. 'It is no less than her due.' Then, indicating Shankala who was still standing silently by. 'And who is this? She appears to belong to you also.'
'The Princess's maid,' Jason put in quickly, before Marianne had time to find her voice.
'She looks more like a gipsy than a respectable servant but then your tastes were always a trifle bizarre, Marianne my dear. Well then, I think we may make a move.'
They set off, the two parties to the projected duel leading, followed by Marianne leaning heavily on the young officer's arm and cudgelling her brains desperately for some way of stopping this duel which could only end in tragedy. For if Jason did manage to save his own life running the Russian through, who could say what the cossacks would do to them in their rage at the loss of their leader? At the moment they were pressing close on all sides and indeed serving a useful purpose in keeping back the press of armed men which had once more overtaken them.
But in another second or two they had reached the shady square and found it as silent and deserted as if it had been the middle of the night. With its blind walls and closely shuttered windows it was like something from a dead world and at its entrance the clamour of the near-by street fell oddly silent. The long, leafy branches of a gigantic sycamore, dark green on one side, soft and silvery beneath, stretched over the gilded railings of a garden wall and the ground below them was quite flat.
'This seems a good enough place,' Jason observed. 'I trust that your – er – kindness will extend to the loan of a weapon?'
But the captain was already freeing his sword from its silken knot and tossing it over to him. Jason caught it and drew it from the sheath and, after testing the blade against his thumb, tried a few passes with it. The sun glittered on the flashing steel.
Chernychev, meanwhile, had thrown off his cloak and unbuttoned his jacket, which he threw to one of his men. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he ripped off his shirt of fine lawn. Jason smiled grimly and did the same with his blouse.
Stripped to the waist, the two men looked about equally matched for strength but they might indeed have belonged to two different races so great was the contrast between the white skin of the one and the reddish hair on his chest, with the body of the other, deeply tanned by long exposure to the sea air. Without so much as a glance at the woman for whose sake they were about to fight, the pair took up their stations facing one another underneath the sycamore where the shadow was thickest and where the sun was least likely to bother them.
Chernychev, having tested the edge of his own sword, saluted his opponent with a sardonic smile.
'I regret that I have no better weapon to offer you. I fear you may not be familiar with the sabre.'
Jason grinned back at him wolfishly.
'I'm touched by your solicitude but have no fear. I shall do very well with this. A naval cutlass is far heavier.' He returned the salute with an ironical swish of his blade.
Chernychev glanced briefly at the girl clinging, pale as death, to his junior officer's arm and murmured softly: 'Do you not desire to say farewell to the Princess? It is unlikely that both of us will emerge from this encounter alive.'
'No, for I expect to live. But I have a word to say to you before we engage. If I should die, will you give me your word to let her go? I want her taken to within reach of the French lines. No doubt once there she will be able to claim the protection of the man with whom you fought that night in the garden.'
A hideous stab of pain shot through Marianne, for Jason's tone left no doubt as to his feelings towards her at that moment. Jealousy, reawakened, had brought with it scorn and contempt. At that moment she even feared that in his revulsion he might court death deliberately.
'It's not true! I swear to you by my father's honour, by my mother's memory that General Fournier – for he is the man in question – is nothing more to me than a friend who came to my rescue at a moment when I stood in dire need of help. He loves my dearest friend, Fortunee Hamelin and for her sake defended me! He called on me that night to thank me for interceding for him to get him restored to his command. May I drop dead this instant if that is not the whole truth! It was his generosity which enabled this dastard here, who had done nothing to deserve it, to make good his escape when the law officers discovered them, while Fournier himself left the house under armed escort. Dare you deny it, Chernychev?'
'How can I, after all I was not there to see! But you may well be right. It – it was certainly the arrival of the officers which prompted my own flight.'
'Ah! There you are!'
Marianne felt suddenly weak with relief, so that she was obliged to sink down on to the low wall at the base of the railings, giving thanks with all her heart that the Russian had shrunk at that moment, when he might be about to meet his Maker, from adding one more lie to the burden on his soul.
Jason threw a quick glance at her and within the forest of his beard his teeth flashed in a suggestion of a smile.
'We can discuss that later.
The two blades engaged with a violence born of the hatred that burned in each man's breast, while Marianne, leaning heavily on Aksakov, could only put her trust in God and embark on a long, tremulous prayer. Chernychev fought like a man with no time to lose, tight-lipped, his face a mask of fury. He was constantly on the attack and his curved blake hissed through the air as fiercely as if he were mowing an invisible field of corn.
Jason, on his side, was content at first merely to parry his strokes without taking the initiative. He had spoken confidently enough but even so the strange weapon took some getting used to, for although somewhat lighter than the seaman's cutlass it was also without a guard. Moreover, he was studying his opponent's swordplay. Feet planted firmly on the ground, the upper part of his body almost motionless and the sword blade whistling about him, he looked like nothing so much as one of those Hindu idols with a multiplicity of arms.
But then, as Chernychev pressed home his attack with renewed vigour, he fell back a pace and in doing so caught his foot against a stone. Marianne cried out sharply and the Russian, taking instant advantage of the
