For a moment
it went down.
"Liar and scoundrel yourself!" he retorted, hoarsely forcing the
words out of his throat. "Spawn of a beastly breed!"
Hamilton saw and felt a change pass over the spirit of the old
priest's movements. Instantly the sword leaping against his own
seemed endowed with subtle cunning and malignant treachery. Before
this it had been difficult enough to meet the fine play and hold
fairly even; now he was startled and confused; but he rose to the
emergency with admirable will power and cleverness.
"Murderer of a poor orphan girl!" Father Beret added with a hot
concentrated accent; "death is too good for you."
Hamilton felt nearer his grave than ever before in all his wild
experience, for somehow doom, shadowy and formless, like the
atmosphere of an awful dream, enmisted those words; but he was no
weakling to quit at the height of desperate conflict. He was
strong, expert, and game to the middle of his heart.
"I'll add a traitor Jesuit to my list of dead," he panted forth,
rising yet again to the extremest tension of his power.
As he did this Father Beret settled himself as you have seen a
mighty horse do in the home stretch of a race. Both men knew that
the moment had arrived for the final act in their impromptu play.
It was short, a duel condensed and crowded into fifteen seconds of
time, and it was rapid beyond the power of words to describe.
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