CHAPTER XXIII
CUTLASSES
There was no thought of guns or pistols. There was no time to aim orfire. Loge's rush had lodged him on the deck. Roaring like a wildanimal, he carried the fight to the defenders. He meant to make afinish of it this time, and with the edged and bitter steel.
As the women scurried into the cabin the two lines met, with a ringingclash of blades, on the deck of the Jasper B., and the sparks flew fromthe stricken metal. Cleggett strove to engage Loge hand to hand; andLoge, on his part, attempted to fight his way to Cleggett; they shoutedinsults at each other across the press of battle. But in affairs ofthis sort a man must give his attention to the person directly in frontof him; otherwise he is lost. As Cleggett cut and thrust and parried,a sudden seizure overtook him; he moved as if in a dream; he had theeerie feeling that he had done all this before, sometime, perhaps in aprevious existence, and would do it again. The clangor of the meetingswords, the inarticulate shouts and curses, the dance of struggling menacross the deck, the whirling confusion of the whole fantastic scenebeneath the quiet skies, struck upon his consciousness with thatstrange phantasmagoric quality which makes the hurrying unreality ofdreams so much more vivid and more real than anything in waking life.
In the center of Cleggett's line stood the three detectives shoulder toshoulder. Their three swords rose and fell as one. They cut and lungedand guarded with a machine-like regularity, advancing, giving ground,advancing again, with a rhythmic unanimity which was baffling to theiropponents.
On either flank of the detectives fought one of the gigantic negroes.Washington Artillery Lamb, almost at once, had broken his cutlass, andnow he raged in the waist of the Jasper B. with a long iron bar in hishand. Miss Pringle's Jefferson, with his high cockaded hat stillfirmly fixed upon his head, laid about him with a heavy cavalry saber;in his excitement he still held his harmonica in his mouth and blewblasts upon it as he fought. The Rev. Simeon Calthrop, in a loudagitated voice, sang hymns as he swung his cutlass. And, among thelegs of the combatants, leapt and snapped Teddy the Pomeranian, bitingfriend and foe indiscriminately upon the ankles.
But gradually the weight of superior numbers began to tell. Farnsworthstaggered from the fight with a face covered with blood which blindedhim. Cap'n Abernethy likewise was bleeding from a wound in the head;George the Greek and Watson Bard were hurt, but both fought on. Thecrew of the Jasper B. and their allies of the Annabel Lee were beingslowly forced back towards the cabin, when there came a sudden anddecisive turn in the fortunes of the fight.
Cleggett, straining to meet Loge, who hung sword to sword with WiltonBarnstable, saw Giuseppe Jones, deserted by his nurses, tumbling feeblyover the bow of the Jasper B. in the rear of Loge's line. Barelegged,a red blanket fastened about his throat with a big brass safety pin, athermometer in one hand and a medicine bottle in the other, hetottered, crazily and weakly between Loge and Barnstable, chanting avers libre poem in a shrill, insane voice.
Loge, who had extended himself in a vigorous lunge, was struck by theweight of the young anarchist's body at the crook of the knees, andcame down on the deck at full length, his machete flying from his handas he fell.
Cleggett was upon the criminal in an instant, his hand at the outlaw'sthroat. They grappled and rolled upon the deck. But in another secondWilton Barnstable and Barton Ward, coming to Cleggett's assistance, hadsnapped irons upon the president of the crime trust, hand and foot.
His overthrow was the signal of his men's defeat. As he went down theyhesitated and wavered. The two great negroes, taking advantage of thishesitation, burst among them with mighty blows and strangeAfro-American oaths, Castor and Pollux in bronze. With a shout of"Banzai!" Kuroki rushed forward with his kris; the other defendersadded weight and fury to the rally. Before the irons were on thewrists of Loge his men were routed. They leaped the rail and made offfor their fleet of taxicabs, flinging away their weapons as they ran.
Loge writhed and twisted and lashed the deck with his legs and body fora moment, striving even against the bands of steel that bit into hiswrists and ankles. And then he lay still with his face against theplanks as if in a vast and overwhelming bitterness of despair.
It had been Cleggett's earlier thought to take the man alive, ifpossible, and turn him over to the authorities. But now that Loge wastaken he burned with the wish for personal combat with him. He desiredto be the agent of society, and put an end to Logan Black himself.
Cleggett, as he gazed at the fellow lying prone upon the deck, couldnot repress a murmur of dissatisfaction.
"We never fought it out," he said.
Whether Loge heard him or not, the same thought was evidently runningis his mind. He lifted his head. A slow, malignant grin that showedhis yellow canine teeth lifted his upper lip. He fixed his eyes onCleggett with a cold deadliness of hatred and said:
"You are lucky."
Outwardly Cleggett remained calm, but inwardly he was shaken with anintensity of passion that matched Loge's own.
"Lucky?" he said quietly. "That is as may be. And if, as I infer, youdesire a settlement of a more personal nature than the law recognizes,it is still not too late to accommodate you."
"Desire!" cried Loge, with a movement of his manacled hands. "I wouldgo to Hell happy if I sent you ahead of me!"
"Very well," said Cleggett. "Since you have challenged me I will fightyou. I will do you that honor."
Loge was about to answer when Wilton Barnstable broke in:
"Mr. Cleggett," he said, "I scarcely understand you. Are youconsenting to fight this man?"
"Certainly," said Cleggett. "He has challenged me."
"A duel?" said Wilton Barnstable in astonishment.
"A duel."
"But that is impossible. His life is forfeit to the law. I hope,before the year is out, to send him to the electric chair. Under thecircumstances, a duel is an absurdity."
"An absurdity?" Cleggett, with his hands on his hips, and a littledancing light in his eyes, faced the great detective squarely. "Youpermit yourself very peculiar expressions, Mr. Barnstable!"
"I beg your pardon," said Wilton Barnstable. "I withdraw 'absurdity.'But you must see yourself, Mr. Cleggett, that a duel is useless, ifnothing else. The man is our prisoner. He belongs to the law."
Loge had struggled to a sitting posture, his back against the portbulwark, and was listening with an odd look on his face.
"The law?" said Cleggett. "I suppose, in one sense, that is true. Butthe matter has its personal element as well."
"I must insist," said Wilton Barnstable, "that Logan Black is myprisoner."
Cleggett was silent a moment. Then he said firmly: "Mr. Barnstable,it is painful to me to have to remind you of it, but your attitudeforces me to an equal directness. The fact that Logan Black is now acaptive is due to his efforts to recover certain evidence which may beused against him. This evidence I discovered and defended, and thisevidence I now hold in my possession."
Wilton Barnstable was about to retort, perhaps heatedly, but Cleggett,generous even while determined to have his own way, hastened to add:"Do not think, Mr. Barnstable, that I minimize your work, or yourassistance--but, after all, what am I demanding that is unreasonable?If Logan Black dies by my hand, are not the ends of justice served aswell as if he died in the electric chair? And if I fall, the law maystill take its course."
Loge had listened to this speech attentively. He lifted his head andglanced about the deck, filling his lungs with a deep draft of air.Something like a gleam of hope was visible in his features.
"It is irregular," said Wilton Barnstable, frowning, and not halfconvinced. "And, in the name of Heaven, why imperil your lifeneedlessly? Why expose yourself again to the power of this monstrouscriminal?"
"The fellow has challenged me, and I have granted him a meeting," saidCleggett. "I hope there is such a thing as honor!"
"Clement!" It was Lady Agatha who spoke. As she did so she laid herhand on Cleggett's arm.
She had hearkened in silence to the colloquybetween him and Barnstable, as had the others. She drew him out ofsight and hearing behind the cabin.
"Clement," she said with agitation, "do not fight this man!"
"I must," he said simply. It cut him to the heart to refuse the firstrequest that she had asked of him since his avowal of his love for herand her tacit acceptance. But, to a man of Cleggett's ideas, there wasno choice.
"Clement," she said in a low tone, "you have told me that you love me."
"Agatha!" he murmured brokenly.
"And you know----" she paused, as if she could not continue, but hereyes and manner spoke the rest. In a moment her lips spoke it too; shewas not the sort of woman who is afraid to avow the promptings of herheart. "You know," she said, "that I love you."
"Agatha!" he cried again. He could say no more.
"Oh, Clement," she said, "if you were killed--killed uselessly!--nowthat I have found you, I could not bear it. Dear, I could not bear it!"
Cleggett was profoundly moved. He yearned to take her in his arms tocomfort her, and to promise anything she wished. And the thought cameto him too that, if he should perish, the one kiss, given and receivedin the darkness and danger of fight and storm, would be all the bravesweetness of her that he would know this side of the grave; the thoughtcame to him bitterly. For an instant he wavered.
"Agatha!" he said with dry lips. "I have already accepted the fellow'schallenge."
"And what of that?" she cried. "Would you cling to a barren point ofhonor in despite of love?"
"Even so," he said, and sighed.
"Oh, Clement," she said, "I cannot bear it! I cannot bear to lose you!I always knew you were in the world somewhere--and now that I havefound you it is only to give you up! It is too much!"
Cleggett was silent for a moment. When he spoke it was slowly andgently, but earnestly.
"No point of honor is a barren one, dear," he said. "What the manlying there may be matters nothing. It is not to him that I have givenmy word, but to myself. In our hurried modern life we are notpunctilious enough about these things. Perhaps, in the old days, themen and women were worse than we in many ways. But they held to a fewtraditions, or the best of them did, that make the loose and tawdrymanners of this age seem cheap indeed. All my life I have known thatthere was something shining and simple and precious concealed from thecommon herd of men in this common age, which the brighter spirits ofthe old days lived by and served and worshiped. I have always seen itplainly, and always tried to live by it, too. Perhaps it was never, inany period, more than a dream; but I have dreamed that dream. Andanyone who dreams that dream will have a reverence for his spoken wordno matter to whom it is passed. I may be a fool to fight this man;well then, that is the kind of fool I am! Indeed, I know I am a foolby the judgments of this age. But I have never truly lived in thisage. I have lived in the past; I have held to the dream; I havebelieved in the bright adventure; I have walked with the generous,chivalric spirits of the great ages; they have come to me out of mybooks and dwelt with me and been my companions, and the realities oftime and place have been unreal in their presence. I see myself sowalking always. It may be that I am a vain ass, but I cannot help it.It may be that I am a little mad; but I would rather be mad with a DonQuixote than sane with an Andrew Carnegie and pile up platitudes anddollars.
"And all this foolishness of mine is somehow bound up with the thoughtthat I have engaged to fight that evil fellow, and must do it; all thebright, sane madness in me cries out that he is to die by this hand ofmine.
"I have opened my heart to you, as I have never done to anyone before.And now I put myself into your hands. But, oh, take care--for it issomething in me better than myself that I give you to deal with! Andyou can cripple it forever, because I love you and I shall listen toyou. Shall I fight him?"
She had listened, mute and immobile, and as he spoke the red sun made asudden glory of her hair. She leaned towards him, and it was as if thespirit of all the man's lifelong, foolish, romantic musings were in hereyes and on her face.
"Fight him!" she said. "And kill him!"
And then her head was on his shoulder, and his arms were about her."Don't die!" she sobbed. "Don't die!"
"Don't fear," he said, "I feel that I'll make short work of him."
She smiled courageously back at him; with her hands upon his shouldersshe held him back and looked at him with tilted head.
"If you are killed," she said, "it will have been more than most womenever get, to have known and loved you for two days."
"Two days?" he said. "Forever!"
"Forever!" she said.