Chapter XXII

When the gray dawn lay over this Alaskan shore, Jeff arose and laid out the best street clothes he owned. Thus it was to be seen that some of his great pride still lingered with him; but this was not the kind of pride that would cast him into darkness. His sleep had been broken, disturbed by wretched dreams; and now he felt tired and listless.

He was only human, and it was beyond him to put away the thought that this might be the morning of his destiny. Long-established habits helped him dress; and he was really not conscious of fastening buttons and pulling on boots. He was depressed rather than frightened; yet as he tried to straighten to his old, proud stature he felt a certain weight of dread.

He found Molly waiting for him on the deck, hoping until now against hope that nervous exhaustion might cause him to oversleep the engagement. She greeted him with a smile; and truly it warmed his chilled heart. Last night he had really deplored the girl’s decision to act as his second; but he could not even pretend to do so now. He was a soldier, the veteran of one of the most terrible wars that was ever fought upon the face of this earth; but at the same time he was Jeff Sharp—lonesome, an exile, and less than thirty years of age.

Molly would be with him at the finish. Although she was surely far removed from him in many things, the promise of her presence then was the dearest consolation he had ever known.

He found himself brightening in the clear, steadfast gleam of her eyes. His listlessness passed away, and he was able to direct his mind to other channels than that of the deadly business awaiting him on the Kolosh Ryeka trail. He listened to her talk, and he made intelligent answers. Very soon he resumed his old carriage, something of his usual high spirits.

She had breakfast ready for him, and they ate it together in the galley. She did not need to encourage him to eat; and they talked of varied things. She did not, however, offer him strong drink, and he did not ask for it. It was true that the fiery liquor might give him false courage, drive the last little chill of fear out of his heart, but at the same time it might induce a fatal recklessness. He needed all his powers to-day. The delicate processes of his brain and the fine coördination between mind and muscle must not be impaired.

After breakfast they walked through the town, across the bridge, and up Governor’s Walk toward Mt. Vestovia. This was a still, somber morning; and except for Molly’s presence, he might have been depressed by it, and believed it was prophetic. The spruce had that dark look often seen under autumn clouds; they were silent, impassive, and aloof, fitting sentinels over this new, unconquered land.

When they reached the appointed place—a little clearing among the tall, dark trees—they found Staritsa waiting, accompanied by Stevock, a surgeon from the hospital. The former had his case of pistols, the latter bandages and ligatures.

Staritsa’s smile was serene; yet he was plainly susceptible to the atmosphere of excitement and suspense that already lay over the glade; not only keenly responsive to it, but perhaps enraptured too with that dark ecstasy remembered since first the cliff folk chattered and howled at the sight of a bloody combat. This was the kind of thing that soon stretched human nerves to the breaking point. Fortunately, there was no long waiting. Baron Karl, accompanied by his second, came up the hill and joined the company.

He also was dressed in his best; his instinct was to honor, in this degree at least, his youthful adversary. He opened his eyes when he saw Molly.

“My opponent has a fair second,” he said to Templeton. “What a pleasant little family matter this is!”

He bowed to her, then to Jeff. The latter, hoping to play the game according to its best traditions, bowed in return.

The Russian’s air of perfect confidence could not be mistaken. His smile as he bowed to the company had the faint suggestion of a leer; yet if he had hoped to lessen Jeff’s resistance by his own self-assurance it was in vain. The man from North Carolina was beyond that now. In spite of the increasing suspense, the hushed breathlessness of the hour, he was really amazingly cool. The absent-mindedness and deep bewilderment which so often accompanies great mortal trial had departed to the last vestige; he was no more inclined to start when some one spoke suddenly to him, his vision was clear, and he was free of that reflex chill that comes from the swelling tide of rushing blood compressing the sensitive walls of the veins. Beyond all this he felt someway upheld by a strength emanating from a brave heart other than his own, safe as though held in sheltering arms that he had long ago known and loved.

Staritsa’s first official duty was to load the pistols, which he did in plain sight of both principals. They saw him put in powder and wads, and in each a cruel pellet of lead which, propelled by the powder’s savage force, could find its way to the fount of a man’s life. Every one watched his motions as he took two small disks from a box of percussion caps, inserted them with care, and dropped the pistol hammers lightly upon them. Then, replacing the pistols in their case which now rested at the base of a great tree, he stepped off ten paces in the middle of the clearing and drew two lines in the soft earth. Then he called the two principals to his side while he gave final instructions.

They were very simple. After the first hit, either man could withdraw from the fight or, if the injury were slight, they could by mutual agreement fire another volley. They were to take their places at a distance of ten paces and face opposite direction until he ordered “fire,”—upon which command both men were to turn and discharge their pistols. The surgeon was to stand ready to treat any injury.

His entire discourse occupied only a few seconds of this fleet hour. He now picked up his pistol case, and the great care with which he handled it indicated that he was fearful lest a slight jar should fire the weapons prematurely. He held the case for the seconds to make their choice of weapons.

Molly took the gun nearest her in the case; and Templeton the one nearest him.

Now the time had come for the two principals to take their places. Standing back to back at a distance of ten paces, they waited for the word “fire,” their guns pointing in the air.

Jeff’s blood was leaping swiftly now, but he still had that most meaningful of all eminences, mastery over himself. The hand that held the pistol was fairly steady; and even now those strange, secret forces of brain and nerve and muscle—mysterious monitors of his being—were focusing on the thing he meant to do.

He had already decided on his tactics. He knew that this duel had never been engineered to satisfy outraged honor; no romantic complex let him think it had been. It was merely a pleasant way out of a serious difficulty, an effective means of removing an obstacle that had come between Karl and the success of one of his schemes. Certainly, then, Karl would shoot to kill. He would take precautions to place his bullet in such a way that his adversary would not readily interfere with him again, at least until after a long period of helplessness in the hospital. To take such deliberate and careful aim took a certain appreciable part of a second—even on the part of one who made dueling his genteel profession—and this fact gave Jeff his chance.

Baron Karl would certainly take time to aim with care. He was probably fully confident of his ability to launch a telling shot in actually less time than his opponent could let fly an aimless one. If Jeff were to live, he must prove that his foe’s supposition was not true.

He must shoot fast, but he must shoot straight. He must catch sight of Karl’s tall form over his sights in the first movement of his pistol. It was jump-shooting such as now and then he had practiced on deer, in low, warm mountains far away.

The scene might now be moving in the extreme to one who could appreciate its romance and forget its cruelty. The two principals, handsome and stylish figures, stood facing in opposite directions, their pistols held erect. Jeff’s good looks were never more appealing, and to Molly, outwardly cold-eyed, watchful, and remorseless, this view of him was almost beyond woman’s strength to bear. He was so young, so valiant; even though this was his last second of life his tragic pride still commanded him. No doubt he wanted to play this wicked game according to its best traditions. There was a distant hint of gayety, unthinkably splendid and fine, in his manner; a quaint humor of resignation such as the great have always reached for, a sportiness beyond impeachment. Vain still, with that dear, pathetic vanity of youth, his pose seemed purposely picturesque; one hand resting on his hip, the other, brown in contrast with the turned-back cuff, holding the richly ornamented pistol, his tall form in linen and broadcloth perfectly erect, his fine head held high, his chin lifted from the silken stock. Molly could not forget the signal change that the next second might bring; the courtly form cast down in hopeless ruin, the white, proud face in the dust, the strong hands impotently waving and then lying still, the flashing eyes spending the last of their noble fire in that weird glare which, seen in the eyes of stricken comrades, haunts the dreams of veterans of great wars.

Karl’s was a courtly figure too, and something of the certain strength of the man was seen in his hairy hand which, though latently swift as a snake’s head, was now steady as iron; in his easy position and confident air. Now he was stark pale for all his Slav darkness of skin; his somber eyes glowed, and the old scar on his cheek looked like a new, red wound. Even if her eyes were not needed elsewhere, Molly could not look at him, simply because of his obvious confidence of victory. She watched the master of ceremonies, now pale as either of the two principals and evidently seared by an evil lust, and Templeton, who now waited, grave and sedate, yet keenly alive to all sporting aspects of this meeting, safe to one side of his man.

The romantic side of the affair was enhanced by its picturesque setting. As the sun peered up over the hills the land had that happy, radiant look that all early risers know: a look of exultant welcome akin to that seen on the countryside in spring; and for the moment the dark presence of the spruce could be forgotten. Long shadows, like bars, lay across the glade. The frosted leaves of the underbrush in the forest beyond were spotted with ominous red. There was no hint or suggestion of sound on the whole hillside.

Staritsa spoke in that deep hush, and the men quivered and their hands moved on their weapons. “I will count three—in English—and when I command you ‘Fire’ you are to turn and seek your satisfaction. Get ready! One!”

“Two!” The pause between the numbers was silent beyond thought.

“Three!”

“Fire!”

At that word, both men whirled. The eyes of each, drawn in and intent, saw the other’s face as if in a calcium light, in this little flash of an instant before the first pistol spoke. Jeff’s face seemed hardly his own, so drawn it was by the fury of his purpose. Every line on Karl’s Slavic countenance showed supreme confidence as to the conflict’s outcome; and a leer of contempt was on his lips.

When Molly saw that look she knew that Jeff had been put upon and cheated. It was incompatible with human frailty that Karl could face a chance of death with such an air. Jeff saw the look too, knowing instantly by means of those keen perceptions that come to men in the ultimate crisis, that an evil plot had been made against his life; but further than that, there was no time to know. There was no time for terror, nor even for regret that he had not guessed the truth before. There was no time left except for playing out this iniquitous game to its inevitable end.

He saw Karl’s tall body over the pistol barrel. At this deadly range—only a few paces—there was no need of careful aiming. Just as he had been taught to do in shooting swiftly moving game in his Southern hills, he pressed the trigger before the pistol hardly came to rest.

There was a single, sharp report. The look on Karl’s face was now one of vast incredulity, grotesque and terrible through the smoke of Jeff’s pistol. Then with a mighty effort—ghastly and evil as the snapping of a dying animal—he took desperate aim with his pistol and pulled the trigger.

All of them heard the hammer snap harmlessly against the breach. Then the only sound was the subdued impact of Karl’s body on the soft earth.