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When they looked up, their eyes went straight to Heywood at the head; so that, though deferring to his elders, the youngest man plainly presided. Chantel turned suddenly, merrily, his teeth flashing in a laugh. "If we are then afraid, let us all take a jonc down the river," he scoffed, "or the next vessel for Hongkong!" Gilly's tired, honest eyes saw only the plain statement. "Impossible."
Chantel, more rueful than either, stared down at a bleeding hand, which held two shards of steel. He had fallen, and snapped his sword in the rubble of old masonry. "No more blades," he said, like a child with a broken toy; "there are no more blades this side of Saigon." "Then we must postpone." Heywood mopped his dripping and fiery cheeks.
"Pistol-bullets they fly on the wings of chance! No? All is well." "Pistols? My dear young gentleman," scoffed his friend, "there's not a pair of matched pistols in the settlement. And if there were, Chantel has the choice. He'll take swords." He paused, in a silence that grew somewhat menacing.
"I am not afraid of anything now," retorted Rudolph, and with truth, after the dash of their twilight encounter. "Dare what?" "Go see what's on that island," she answered. "I dared them all. Twice I've seen natives land there and hurry away. Mr. Nesbit was too lazy to try; Dr. Chantel wearing his best clothes. Maurice Heywood refused to mire his horse for a whim. Whim? It's a mystery! Come, now.
"You have no right to such an expression," he stated, with a coldness which conveyed more rage than the other man's heat. "This was entirely my fault. It's I who have spoiled your arrangement, and therefore I am quite ready to take up my friend's quarrel." "I have no quarrel with you," replied Chantel, contemptuously. "You saw last night how he " "He was quicker than I, that's all.
"The sun's getting low," she said lightly, "and I must see that view from the top." Chantel was rising, but sat down again with a scowl, as she turned to Rudolph. "You've never seen it, Mr. Hackh? Do come help me up." Inside, with echoing steps, they mounted in a squalid well, obscurely lighted from the upper windows, toward which decaying stairs rose in a dangerous spiral, without guard-rail.
The good bishop of Bernex, with less wit than Francis of Sales, resembled him in many particulars, and Madam de Warrens, whom he loved to call his daughter, and who was like Madam de Chantel in several respects, might have increased the resemblance by retiring like her from the world, had she not been disgusted with the idle trifling of a convent.
"You fool!" Chantel swore in one tongue, and in another cried to the boatman "Shove off, if they won't come!" He seized the woman roughly and pulled her on board; but she reached out and caught Rudolph's hand again. "Come, hurry," she whispered, tugging at him. "Come, dear boy. I won't leave you. Quickly. You saw it burning. They're all dead. It's no use. We must live. We must live, darling."
Chantel, Nesbit, and Kempner laughed uproariously, the padre and the dark-eyed Miss Drake quietly, Heywood more quietly, while even stout, uneasy Mrs. Earle smiled as in duty bound. A squad of Chinese boys, busy with tiffin-baskets, found time to grin. To this lively actress in the white gown they formed a sylvan audience under the gnarled boughs and the pagoda.
"Rather!" drawled Rudolph's friend, with an alacrity that seemed half cynical, half enigmatic. A quick tread mounted the stairs, and into the room rose Dr. Chantel. He bowed gracefully to the padre's group, but halted beside the players. Whatever he said, they forgot their game, and circled the table to listen. He spoke earnestly, his hands fluttering in nervous gestures.
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