With relief Robyn watched the familiar ease with which her champion handled the weapon, and she felt completely certain of the outcome now. Good must triumph, and she started to pray again, silently, only her lips moving as she recited the twenty-third psalm. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. 'Take your positions, gentlemen. ' Zouga stepped back and gestured to Robyn. Still praying, she hurried to where Zouga stood, and fell in a few paces behind him, well out on the flank from the lines of fire of the two principals.
Beside Zouga, Tippoo drew the long, clumsy-looking pistol from the sash around his waist and cocked the big ornate hammer, the bore of the barrel gaped like a cannon as he lifted it into the 'present' position. Zouga drew his own Colt revolver and stood quietly while the two principals walked the last few paces towards each other and then turned back to back.
Beyond them the early sun was gilding the hilltops with bright gold, but leaving the lagoon still in shadow so the still dark waters steamed with wisps of mist. In the silence a ghostly grey heron croaked hoarsely and then launched into flight from the edge of the reedbank with slow wingbeats, its neck drawn back into a snakelike 'SI to balance the long beak. Proceed! ' called Zouga, so loudly that Robyn started violently.
The two men stepped out, away from each other, with deliberate strides, heeling heavily in the yielding sand, pacing to the count that Zouga called. Five. ' Mungo St. John was smiling softly, as though at some secret joke, and his white silk sleeve fluttered like a moth's wing around the uplifted arm that held the slim steel-blue barrel pointed at the dawn sky. Six. ' Clinton leaned forward, stepping out with long legs clad in white uniform breeches. His face was set, pale as a mask, his lips drawn into a thin determined line. Seven. ' Robyn felt the beat of her heart crescendo, thumping painfully against the cage of her ribs so that she could not breathe. Eight. ' She noticed for the first time the patches of sweat that had soaked through the armpits of Clinton's white shirt, despite the chill of the dawn air. Nine. ' Suddenly she was deadly afraid for him, all her faith dissolved in a sudden premonition of disaster rushing down upon her. Ten! ' She wanted to scream to them to stop. She wanted to rush forward and throw herself into the space between the two men. She didn't want them to die, either of them. She tried to fill her lungs but her throat was closed and dry, she tried to drive her legs forward but they were locked rigidly under her, beyond her control. Fire! ' shouted Zouga, his voice cracking with the tenSion that gripped all the watchers and out on the damp dark-yellow sand both men turned, like a pair of dancers in a meticulously rehearsed ballet of death.
Their right arms out-flung towards each other in a gesture like that of parted lovers, the left hand on the hip t to balance, the classic stance of the expert marksman.
Time seemed suspended, the movements of the two men graceful but measured, without the urgency of onrushing death.
The silence was complete, there was no wind to rustle the reeds, no bird nor animal called from the looming forest across the lagoon, the footfalls of the two men were deadened by the yielding sand, the world seemed to hold its breath.
And then the crash of pistol fire awoke the echoes and sent them bounding and booming across the gorge, leaping from cliff to cliff, startling the birds into raucous flight.
The two shots were within one hundredth of a second of each other, so that they blended into a single blurt of sound. From the levelling blue barrels the dead white powder smoke spurted, and then the barrels were flung upwar(s in unison with the shock of discharge.
Both men reeled backwards, keeping their feet, but Robyn had seen the smoke fly from the muzzle of Mungo St. John's pistol a fraction of a second earlier, and then an instant liter Mungo's big dark head flinched as though he had been struck with an open hand across the cheek.
Alter that one staggered pace backwards, he steadied, drawing himself to his full height, the pistol still smoking in his raised hand, staring at his adversary, and Robyn felt -a rush of relief. Mungo St. John was unscathed. She wanted to run to him, and then suddenly the joy withered, a dark red snake of blood slithered from the thick hair at his temple down the smoothly shaven olive skin of his cheek and dripped with slow sullen drops on to the white silk of his shirt.
She lifted her hand to her mouth to cover the cry that rose within her, and then her attention was distracted by another movement in the corner of her vision and she swung her head with a jerky movement towards Clinton Codrington.
He also had been standing erect, with almost military bearing, but now he began to bow slowly forward at the waist. The right hand holding the pistol hung at his side and now his fingers opened and the ornate weapon dropped into the sand at his feet.
He lifted the empty hand and placed it across his chest with fingers outspread in a gesture that seemed reverential and slowly his body bent forward and now his legs gave way under him and he dropped to his knees, as though in prayer. Kneeling, he lifted his hand away from his chest and examined with an expression of mild surprise the small smear of blood that coated his fingers and then he pitched forward face down on to the sand.
At last Robyn could move. She raced forward and dropped to her knees beside Clinton's fallen body, and with strength of panic rolled him on to his back. The front of the white linen shirt was damp with a little blood around the neat puncture in the cloth six inches to the left of the line of mother of pearl buttons.
He had been half-turned to fire and the ball had taken him low and left, at the level of the lungs, she saw instantly. The lungs! She felt despair overwhelm her. It would mean death, no less certain because it was slow and agonizing. She would have to watch this min drown inexorably in his own blood.
Sand crunched beside her and she looked up.
Mungo St. John stood over her, his shirt a mess of wet blood. He was holding a silk kerchief to his temple to staunch the copious flow where the pistol ball had stripped a long ribbon of scalp off his skull above the ear.
His eyes were bleak, his expression forbidding and his voice cold and distant as he told her quietly. I trust you will be satisfied at last, madam. ' Then he turned abruptly up the white dune towards the beach.
She wanted to run after him, to restrain him, to explain to explain she knew not what, but her duty was here, with the man more gravely stricken. Her fingers shook as she unbuttoned the front of Clinton's shirt and saw the dark blue hole punched into the pale flesh from which a little thick slow blood oozed. So little blood at the mouth of the wound, it was the worst indication - the bleeding would be inside, deep inside the chest cavity'Zouga, my bag, she called sharply.
Zouga came to her, carrying the bag and went down on one knee beside her. I am but lightly struck, ' murmured Clinton.
'I have no pain. just a feeling of numbness here Zouga did not reply. He had seen a multitude of gunshot wounds in India, pain was no indication of the severity. A ball through the hand or foot was unbearable agony, another through both lungs was only mildly discomforting.
