Greifenstein Part 15

'Have we any other pairs?' asked Greif absently.

'Three others. Two foxes and Hollenstein. He is gone to bed and I am going to send the foxes after him. We can make a night of it, if you like.'

'I will stay with you,' said Rex, who seemed jovially inclined.

Neither Greif nor the second thought it their business to suggest that their combatant had better get some rest before the battle. When two o'clock struck, Rex was teaching them all a new song, which was not in the book, his clear strong voice ringing out steadily and tunefully through the smoky chamber, his smooth complexion neither flushed nor pale from the night's carousal, his stony eyes as colourless and forbidding, as his smile was genial and unaffected.

As they rose to go, he caught sight of a huge silver-mounted horn that hung behind his chair.

'I will drink that out to-morrow night, with your permission,' he said with a light laugh.

'Bravo!' shouted the excited chorus.

'He is a little drunk,' whispered the student whom Bauer had wounded, addressing his neighbour.

'Or a boaster, who will back down the floor,' answered the other shrugging his shoulders.

'I hope you may do it,' said the first speaker aloud and turning to Rex.

'If you do, I will empty it after you to your health, and so will every Swabian here.'

'Ay, that will we!' exclaimed Greif, and the others joined readily in the promise. Seeing how probable it was that by the next evening Rex would be in bed, with a bag of ice on his head, it was not likely that they would be called upon to perform the feat.

'It is a beer-oath then!' said Rex. 'Let us go and fight.'

And they filed out into the narrow street, silently and quietly, in fear of attracting attention to their movements.

CHAPTER IX

The scene presented by the Palmengarten restaurant at four o'clock in the morning was extremely strange. Since Greif and Rex had dined together in the place on the previous evening, the arrangement of the hall had been considerably changed. The palms alone remained in their places around the four sides, and their long spiked leaves and gigantic fans cast fantastic shadows under the brilliant gaslight. The broad marble floor was cleared of furniture and strewn with sawdust, some fifty chairs being arranged at the upper end of the room, around and behind the fountain, whose tiny stream rose high into the air and tinkled as it fell back again into the basin below. A few small tables remained in the corners. The place was lighted by a corona of gas-jets, and was on the whole as bright and roomy a fencing ground as the heart of a Korps student could desire. The proprietor, who entered with enthusiasm into the scheme, moved about, followed by a confidential waiter in his white ap.r.o.n, examining every detail, adjusting the position of the tables and chairs, turning the princ.i.p.al key of the gas-jets a little so as to obtain the best possible flame, and every now and then running to the door which opened to the outer chambers, as he fancied that he heard some one tapping at the street entrance. The whole effect of the preparations suggested something between a concert and the reception of a deputation, and no one would have suspected that a party of young men were about to engage in a serious tournament amidst the fantastic decorations and the shadows of the beautiful plants, beneath the flood of light that bathed everything in warm l.u.s.tre.

Presently the expected signal was heard, and the proprietor rushed breathlessly to the outer door. Greif, Rex and their companions entered swiftly and silently, followed by the liveried servant of the Korps who carried an extraordinary collection of bags and bundles, which he dropped upon the floor with a grunt of satisfaction as soon as he was inside. Then he took up his burden again, at the command of the burly second, and carried his traps into the illuminated hall. With the speed of a man accustomed to his work he began to unpack everything, laying out the basket-hilts of the rapiers, adorned with battered colours, side by side, and next to them half a dozen bright blades freshly ground and cleaned, each with its well oiled screw-nut upon the rough end that was to run through the guard, while the small iron wrench was placed in readiness at hand. Then three leathern jerkins were taken from their sacks and examined to see whether every string and buckle was in order, then the arm and neck bandages, the iron eye-pieces, the gauntlets padded in the wrist, the long gloves and stout caps with leathern visors worn by the seconds, the regulation s.h.i.+rts for the combatants, the bottle of spirits for rubbing their tired arms, a couple of sponges, and a dozen trifles of all sorts--in a word, all the paraphernalia of student warfare.

The next person to appear upon the ground was the surgeon, a young man with a young beard, who had not been many years out of a Korps himself, and who understood by experience the treatment of every scratch and wound that a rapier can inflict. He also carried a bag, though a small one, and began to lay out his instruments in a business-like fas.h.i.+on upon the table reserved for his use. Then there was another summons from the door and the members of the Rhine Korps filed silently in, their dark blue caps contrasting oddly with the brilliant yellow of the Swabians. They saluted gravely and kept together upon the opposite side of the room. Next came the Westphalians, in green caps, and the Saxons with black ones, till nearly a hundred students filled half the available s.p.a.ce in the hall. Then the seconds in charge met together in the centre and looked over their lists of duels. There was a moment of total silence in the chamber, until the result was known, for no one could tell exactly which duel would be fought first. Then the four separated again and returned quickly to their comrades.

'We are to let fly first,' said the Swabian second to his chief. 'Now, Hollenstein, old man, jump into your drumming skin!'

'You will be next,' said Greif turning to Rex and speaking in an undertone. 'You had better dress while Hollenstein is out with the Saxon. The affair will not last long, I fancy.'

Hollenstein, a thickset fellow with a baby's complexion, but whose sharp eye showed his temper, went quietly about the operation of dressing, a.s.sisted by a couple of foxes, the second in charge and the Korps servant, who was as expert in preparations for duels as an English valet in dressing his master for following the hounds. In ten minutes everything was ready, the seconds on each side drew on their gloves, settled the long visors of their caps well over their eyes, took their blunt rapiers in hand and stepped forward. The witnesses of each party, also gloved, stood on the left of the combatants, it being their duty to watch the blades, and to see whether either fencer backed down the ground. The umpire took out his pocket-book and pencil and stop-watch, and placed himself where he could look across the fighting. The armed fighters stood up face to face at half the length of the room, a novice supporting the right arm of each high in air.

'Paukanten parat? Are the combatants ready?' inquired the umpire, who was the chief of the Westphalians.

'Parat! Ready!' was answered from both sides simultaneously.

'Silence!' cried the umpire. 'The duel begins. Auf die Mensur! Fertig!

Los!'

Hollenstein and his adversary walked forward, accompanied by their seconds. Each struck a formal tierce cut at the other, and a halt was cried. They scarcely retired and the umpire repeated the words 'To the fight! Ready! Go!' and the duel began in earnest. Both were accomplished swordsmen, and the combat promised to be a long one. They exhibited to the admiring spectators every intricacy of _schlager_ fencing, in all its wonderful neatness and quickness of cut and parry. From time to time a halt was called, and each man retired to his original place, his right arm being caught and held in air by the 'bearing-fox,' as the novice is called whose business it is to fill the office. The object of this proceeding is to prevent a rush of blood to the arm, which might cause pain and numbness in the member and interfere with the combatant's quickness.

'A couple of good fencers,' remarked Rex as he rose from his chair and went to prepare himself for what was before him.

'You will see what will happen,' answered Greif with a smile of confidence in his comrade.

The 'drumming,' as the students call it, proceeded for some minutes, and nothing was heard in the hall but the sharp whistle and ring of the blades and the sound of shuffling feet upon the sawdust-covered floor.

All at once Hollenstein turned his hand completely round upon his wrist in the act of striking what is called a deep-carte, remained a moment in this singular position, which seemed to confuse his adversary, and then as the latter was making up his mind what to do, suddenly finished the movement and returned to his guard in time to parry the inevitable tierce. A thin line of scarlet instantly appeared upon the Saxon's face, straight across his left cheek.

'Halt!' cried both seconds at once.

'She sat!' exclaimed the second of the Swabians, throwing down his blunt sword and making for a goblet of beer that was placed in readiness for him, as though he took no further interest in the proceedings.

Hollenstein stood as usual with his arm supported by the novice, while the Saxon was examined by the surgeon.

'Abfuhr!' said the latter. The word means that the wounded man must be removed.

'Please to declare the Abfuhr!' said the Swabian second relinquis.h.i.+ng his gla.s.s and turning sharply to the umpire.

'Saxonia is led away,' declared the Westphalian chief, making a note of the fact in his pocket-book, and shutting up his watch.

Before he had finished speaking, Hollenstein had given up his sword and was beginning to disarm, while a fox wiped the perspiration from his placid pink face.

'Nicely done, old man,' said Greif, coming up to him.

'I like that way of doing it, do not you?' inquired Hollenstein with a childlike smile. 'I practised all last summer on my father's orderly.

You know we always keep fencing things at home.'

'And how did the soldier like it?' asked Greif with a laugh.

'Better than you would,' replied the other laughing, too. 'He is a clever churl and has discovered the answer to the attack. Give me some beer, little fox!'

The novice obeyed, and a Homeric draught interrupted the interview.

Greif turned to Rex, upon whose face the iron eyepieces were being adjusted. All the Swabians present were collected around him, excepting the second, who sat in solitary glory by his beer, opposite the Rhine Korps, awaiting events with stolid indifference.

'Take care!' said Greif whispering into the ear of his friend. 'I have never seen you fence, and Bauer's cartes are famous.'

'Remember the big horn!' said some of the men around him.

'I will not forget it,' answered Rex smiling, as he opened and shut his hand in the gauntlet, and then held out the palm to be chalked. 'And I hope you will not forget your promises either,' he added.

'Will you not have a gla.s.s of brandy?' asked some one with a scarcely perceptible tinge of irony.

'My friend,' replied Rex, turning sharply round in the direction of the speaker's voice, 'exactly fifteen minutes after the word "Go," I will drink a bottle of champagne with you, and I should be greatly obliged if you would direct the waiter to put the wine in ice at once, as it will scarcely be cool in so short a time.'

'Willingly,' said the student with a dry laugh, in which some of the bystanders joined, while all looked curiously at the man who seemed so absolutely sure of success. Greif's face was grave, however, and he himself selected the rapier for Rex's hand. All was ready and the adversaries stood up in their places. Bauer the Rhine Korps man, was an ugly sight. The eye-pieces gave a singularly sinister expression to his sallow face, and his disorderly hair looked like a wig of twisted black wire, while the jerkin he wore seemed almost dropping from his long, sinewy frame. He made his sharp weapon whistle three or four times in the air and tapped his foot impatiently upon the marble floor as though anxious to begin. Greif's heart beat quickly, and he was conscious that he would infinitely rather fight the duel himself.

The umpire began by declaring that the duel was between Herr Bauer of the Rhine Korps and Herr Rex, who fought with Swabian weapons.