The Free Lances: A Romance of the Mexican Valley Page 8

  CHAPTER EIGHT.

  A DISGRACED DUELLIST.

  Impossible to describe the scene which followed, or the expression uponthe faces of those men who stood beside Santander. The Texan, strong ashe was big, still kept hold of him, though now at arm's length; in hisgrasp retaining the grown man with as much apparent ease as though itwere but a child. And there, sure enough, under the torn flannel shirt,all could see a doublet of chain armour, impenetrable to sword's pointas plate of solid steel.

  Explanation this of why Carlos Santander was so ready to take the fieldin a duel, and had twice left his antagonist lifeless upon it. Itexplained also why, when leaping across the water-ditch, he had droppedso heavily upon the farther bank. Weighted as he was, no wonder.

  By this time the two doctors, with the pair of hackney-drivers, seeingthat something had turned up out of the common course, parting from thecarriages, had also come upon the ground; the jarveys, in sympathy withCris Rock, crying, "Shame!" In the Crescent City even a cabman hassomething of chivalry in his nature--the surroundings teach and inviteit--and now the detected scoundrel seemed without a single friend. Forhe--hitherto acting as such, seeing the imposture, which had been alikepractised on himself, stepped up to his principal, and looking himscornfully in the face, hissed out the word "_Lache_!"

  Then turning to Kearney and Crittenden he added--

  "Let that be my apology to you, gentlemen. If you're not satisfied withit, I'm willing and ready to take his place--with either of you."

  "It's perfectly satisfactory, monsieur," frankly responded theKentuckian, "so far as I'm concerned. And I think I may say as much forCaptain Kearney."

  "Indeed, yes," assented the Irishman, adding: "We absolve you, sir, fromall blame. It's evident you knew nothing of that shining panoply tillnow;" as he spoke, pointing to the steel shirt.

  The French-Creole haughtily, but courteously, bowed thanks. Then,facing once more to Santander, and repeating the "_Lache_" strodesilently away from the ground.

  They had all mistaken the character of the individual, who, despite asomewhat forbidding face, was evidently a man of honour, as he hadproved himself.

  "What d'ye weesh me to do wi' him?" interrogated the Texan, stillkeeping Santander in firm clutch. "Shed we shoot him or hang him?"

  "Hang!" simultaneously shouted the two hackney-drivers, who seemed asbitter against the disgraced duellist as if he had "bilked" them of afare.

  "So I say, too," solemnly pronounced the Texan; "shootin's too good forthe like o' him; a man capable o' sech a cowardly, murderous trickdesarves to die the death o' a dog."

  Then, with an interrogating look at Crittenden, he added: "Which is't tobe, lootenant?"

  "Neither, Cris," answered the Kentuckian. "If I mistake not, the_gentleman_ has had enough punishment without either. If he's got somuch as a spark of shame or conscience--"

  "Conshence!" exclaimed Rock, interrupting. "Sech a skunk don't know themeanin' o' the word. Darn ye!" he continued, turning upon his prisoner,and shaking him till the links in the steel shirt chinked, "I feel as ifI ked drive the blade o' my bowie inter ye through them steel fixin'san' all."

  And, drawing his knife from its sheath, he brandished it in a menacingmanner.

  "Don't, Rock! Please don't!" interposed the Kentuckian, Kearney joiningin the entreaty. "He's not worth anger, much less revenge. So let himgo."

  "You're right thar, lootenant," rejoined Rock. "He ain't worth eyther,that's the truth. An' 'twould only be puttin' pisen on the blade o' myknife to smear it wi' his black blood. F'r all, I ain't a-gwine to lethim off so easy's all that, unless you an' the captain insists on it.After the warmish work he's had, an' the sweat he's put himself in bythe wearin' o' two shirts at a time, I guess he won't be any the worseof a sprinkling o' cold water. So here goes to gie it him."

  Saying which, he strode off towards the ditch, half-dragging,half-carrying Santander along with him.

  The cowed and craven creature neither made resistance, nor dared. Hadhe done so, the upshot was obvious. For the Texan's blade, still bared,was shining before his eyes, and he knew that any attempt on his part,either to oppose the latter's intention or escape, would result inhaving it buried between, his ribs. So, silently, sullenly, he allowedhimself to be taken along, not as a lamb to the slaughter, but a wolf,or rather dog, about to be chastised for some malfeasance.

  In an instant after, the chastisement was administered by the Texanlaying hold of him with both hands, lifting him from off his feet, andthen dropping him down into the water-ditch, where, weighted with thesteel shirt, he fell with a dead, heavy plunge, going at once to thebottom.

  "That's less than your desarvin's," said the Texan, on thus deliveringhis charge. "An' if it had been left to Cris Rock 'twould 'a been _up_,'stead o' _down_, he'd 'a sent ye. If iver man desarved hangin', you'rethe model o' him. Ha--ha--ha! Look at the skunk now!"

  The last words, with the laugh preceding them, were elicited by theludicrous appearance which Santander presented. He had come to thesurface again, and, with some difficulty, owing to the encumbrance ofhis under-shirt, clambered out upon the bank. But not as when he wentunder. Instead, with what appeared a green cloak over his shoulders,the scum of the stagnant water long collecting undisturbed. Thehackney-driver--there was but one now, the other taken off by Duperon,who had hired him, their doctor too--joined with Rock in his laughter,while Kearney, Crittenden, and their own surgeon could not help unitingin the chorus. Never had tragic hero suffered a more comicaldiscomfiture.

  He was now permitted to withdraw from the scene of it, a permission ofwhich he availed himself without further delay; first retreating forsome distance along the Shell Road, as one wandering and distraught;then, as if seized by a sudden thought, diving into the timbered swampalongside, and there disappearing.

  Soon after the carriage containing the victorious party rattled past;they inside it scarce casting a look to see what had become ofSantander. He was nothing to them now, at best only a thing to be amatter of ludicrous remembrance. Nor long remained he in theirthoughts; these now reverting to Texas, and their necessity forhastening back to the Crescent City, to make start for "The Land of theLone Star."