The Snare by Rafael Sabatini

Author:Rafael Sabatini
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: military, A&A, historical
ISBN: 9781406542721
Publisher: Dodo Press
Published: 2007-06-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII. THE DUEL

It was a time of stress and even of temptation for Sir Terence. Honour and pride demanded that he should keep the appointment made with Samoval; common sense urged him at all costs to avoid it. His frame of mind, you see, was not at all enviable. At moments he would consider his position as adjutant-general, the enactment against duelling, the irregularity of the meeting arranged, and, consequently, the danger in which he stood on every score; at others he could think of nothing but the unpardonable affront that had been offered him and the venomously insulting manner in which it had been offered, and his rage welled up to blot out every consideration other than that of punishing Samoval.

For two days and a night he was a sort of shuttlecock tossed between these alternating moods, and he was still the same when he paced the quadrangle with bowed head and hands clasped behind him awaiting Samoval at a few minutes before twelve of the following night. The windows that looked down from the four sides of that enclosed garden were all in darkness. The members of the household had withdrawn over an hour ago and were asleep by now. The official quarters were closed. The rising moon had just mounted above the eastern wing and its white light fell upon the upper half of the facade of the residential site. The quadrangle itself remained plunged in gloom.

Sir Terence, pacing there, was considering the only definite conclusion he had reached. If there were no way even now of avoiding this duel, at least it must remain secret. Therefore it could not take place here in the enclosed garden of his own quarters, as he had so rashly consented. It should be fought upon neutral ground, where the presence of the body of the slain would not call for explanations by the survivor.

From distant Lisbon on the still air came softly the chimes of midnight, and immediately there was a sharp rap upon the little door set in one of the massive gates that closed the archway.

Sir Terence went to open the wicket, and Samoval stepped quickly over the sill. He was wrapped in a dark cloak, a broad-brimmed hat obscured his face. Sir Terence closed the door again. The two men bowed to each other in silence, and as Samoval's cloak fell open he produced a pair of duelling-swords swathed together in a skin of leather.

"You are very punctual, sir," said O'Moy.

"I hope I shall never be so discourteous as to keep an opponent waiting. It is a thing of which I have never yet been guilty," replied Samoval, with deadly smoothness in that reminder of his victorious past. He stepped forward and looked about the quadrangle. "I am afraid the moon will occasion us some delay," he said. "It were perhaps better to wait some five or ten minutes, by then the light in here should have improved."

"We can avoid the delay by stepping out into the open," said Sir Terence.

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