A Breath of Prairie and other stories Part 23

"Consider yourself, then, the challenged party."

They were both very calm, now; the immediate exciting cause in the mind of neither. It seemed as if they had been expecting this time for years, had been preparing for it.

"Perhaps, as yesterday, in the saloon?" The points of the big moustaches twitched ironically. "I promise you there'll be no procrastination as--at certain cases recorded."

The mockery, malice inspired, was cleverly turned, and Ichabod's big chin protruded ominously, as he came over and fairly towered above the small man.

"Most a.s.suredly it'll not be as yesterday. If we're going to reverse civilization, we may as well roll it away back. We'll settle it alone, and here."

Asa Arnold smiled up into the blue eyes.

"You'd prefer to make the adjustment with your hands, too, perhaps?

There'd be less risk, considering--" He stopped at the look on the face above his. No man _vis-a-vis_ with Ichabod Maurice ever made accusation of cowardice. Instead, instinctive sarcasm leaped to his lips.

"Not being of the West, I don't ordinarily carry an a.r.s.enal with me, in antic.i.p.ation of such incidents as these. If you're prepared, however,--" and he paused again.

Ichabod turned away; a terrible weariness and disgust of it all--of life, himself, the little man,--in his face. A tragedy would not be so bad, but this lingering comedy of death--One thing alone was in his mind: to have it over, and quickly.

"I didn't expect--this, either. We'll find another way."

He glanced about the room. A bed, the improvised commode, a chair, a small table with a book upon it, and a tallow candle--an idea came to him, and his search terminated.

"I may--suggest--" he hesitated.

"Go on."

Ichabod took up the candle, and, with his pocket-knife, cut it down until it was a mere stub in the socket, then lit a match and held the flame to the wick, until the tallow sputtered into burning.

"You can estimate when that light will go out?" he intimated impa.s.sively.

Asa Arnold watched the tall man, steadily, as the latter returned the candle to the table and drew out his watch.

"I think so," _sotto voce_.

Ichabod returned to his seat on the bed.

"You are not afraid, perhaps, to go into the dark alone?"

"No."

"By your own hand?"

"No," again, very slowly. Arnold understood now.

"You swear?" Ichabod flashed a glance with the question.

"I swear."

"And I."

A moment they both studied the sputtering candle.

"It'll be within fifteen minutes," randomed Ichabod.

Arnold drew out his watch slowly.

"It'll be longer."

That was all. Each had made his choice; a trivial matter of one second in the candle's life would decide which of these two men would die by his own hand.

For a minute there was no sound. They could not even hear their breathing. Then Arnold cleared his throat.

"You didn't say when the loser must pay his debt," he suggested.

Ichabod's voice in answer was a trifle husky.

"It won't be necessary." A vision of the future flashed, sinister, inevitable. "The man who loses won't care to face the necessity long."

Five minutes more pa.s.sed. Down the street the blacksmith was hammering steadily. Beneath the window the group of farmers had separated; their departing footsteps tapping into distance and silence.

Minna went to the street door, calling loudly for Hans, Jr., who had strayed,--and both men started at the sound. The quick catch of their breathing was now plainly audible.

Arnold s.h.i.+fted in his chair.

"You swear--" his voice rang unnaturally sharp, and he paused to moisten his throat,--"you swear before G.o.d you'll abide by this?"

"I swear before G.o.d," repeated Ichabod slowly.

A second, and the little man followed in echo.

"And I--I swear, I, too, will abide."

Neither man remembered that one of this twain, who gave oath before the Deity, was an agnostic, the other an atheist!

A lonely south wind was rising, and above the tinkle of the blacksmith's hammer there sounded the tap of the light shade as it flapped in the wind against the window-pane. Low, drowsy, moaning,--typical breath of prairie,--it droned through the loosely built house, with sound louder, but not unlike the perpetual roar of a great sea-sh.e.l.l.

Ten minutes pa.s.sed, and the men sat very still. Both their faces were white, and in the angle of the jaw of each the muscles were locked hard. Ichabod was leaning near the candle. It sputtered and a tiny globule of hot tallow struck his face. He winced and wiped the drop off quickly. Observing, Arnold smiled and opened his lips as if to make comment; then closed them suddenly, and the smile pa.s.sed.

Two minutes more the watches ticked off; very, very slowly. Neither of the men had thought, beforehand, of this time of waiting. Big drops of sweat were forming on both their faces, and in the ears of each the blood sang madly. A haze, as from the dropping of a shade, seemed to have formed and hung over the room, and in unison sounds from without acquired a certain faintness, like that born of distance. Through it all the two men sat motionless, watching the candle and the time, as the fascinated bird watches its charmer; as the subject watches the hypnotist,--as if the pa.s.sive exercise were the one imperative thing in the world.

"Thirteen minutes."

Unconsciously, Arnold was counting aloud. The flame was very low, now, and he started to move his chair closer, then sank back, a smile, almost ghastly, upon his lips. The blaze had reached the level of the socket, and was growing smaller and smaller. Two minutes yet to burn!

He had lost.

He tried to turn his eyes away, but they seemed fastened to the spot, and he powerless. It was as though death, from staring him in the face, had suddenly gripped him hard. The panorama of his past life flashed through his mind. The thoughts of the drowning man, of the miner who hears the rumble of crumbling earth, of the prisoner helpless and hopeless who feels the first touch of flame,--common thought of all these were his; and in a s.p.a.ce of time which, though seeming to him endless, was in reality but seconds.

Then came the duller reaction and the events of the last few minutes repeated themselves, impersonally, spectacularly,--as though they were the actions of another man; one for whom he felt very sorry. He even went into the future and saw this same man lying down with a tiny bottle in his hand, preparing for the sleep from which there would be no awakening,--the sleep which, in antic.i.p.ation, seemed so pleasant.