The Strange Story of Rab Raby Part 21

The old gentleman embraced his nephew as if he were going to face the enemy, and had his best horses put in for him, and they brought Raby to the judge's house in less than an hour.

The uninvited guest just caught the judge going out.

"Come back with me to the house," said his visitor, "I want to have a word with you."

Petray guessed from the speaker's tone that it was on no friendly business that he had come, though he affected not to perceive it, and treated Raby with his accustomed familiarity.

When they had come into Petray's parlour, Raby drew the letter out of his pocket and held it before his host's face.

"Do you recognise this writing?"

Petray drew himself up.

"What presumption is this, pray? To open a letter directed to someone else, it is unheard of!"

"It is perfectly legal," said Raby. "Your protest is useless. In the eyes of the law, a letter written to my wife is a letter written to me."

"It is, I say, a great piece of presumption, to attack a man like this in his own house."

"You need not make such a noise! You may see I carry pistols in my belt." Then adopting a more familiar tone, Raby added, "It comes to this, either you take one of these two pistols, and we fire according to the prescribed rules, or if you refuse me the satisfaction of a man of honour, I shoot you dead without further ado, as I would a wolf who attacks me on the highway."

The cowardly bully grew pale with fear. To look at him, you would have deemed him a powerful foe to be reckoned with, but he was a very coward at heart, like the braggart that he was.

"All right, I'm not afraid of you, or of anybody else, for that matter.

But all this is idle talk! A gentleman does not fight with pistols. That kind of duel exacts no skill. A schoolboy can fire off a pistol. I only fight with swords; so with my sword I am at your service to have it out in proper fas.h.i.+on. Out with yours, and we'll see who is the best man of the two."

"Very well, with swords, so be it," said Raby quietly, replacing his pistols again in his belt.

"And now you had better make your will, for you don't leave this place alive."

"That our weapons will decide. I have nothing further to say," answered Raby.

"So, you will venture to draw your sword on me, will you, you silly fellow?"

"With you, or after you. I would not have it said that I drew my sword on an unarmed man," answered his antagonist.

"Don't provoke me, Raby! I tell you we will have it out here."

"Well, draw then!"

Petray thus urged, endeavoured to draw his sword in earnest from his belt, but that otherwise excellent weapon had never been used since the last Prussian war, and stuck so fast in its sheath that the most powerful tugs quite failed to move it.

Come out it would not. Mr. Petray pulled and tugged to no avail; the blade would not yield an inch.

"Good heavens," cried Raby impatiently, "hand it over to me, I will make it come out."

And hereupon the two opponents pulled away with might and main at the refractory weapon; Raby seizing the sheath, and Petray the handle, indulged in a very tug-of-war, but to no purpose; the sword stuck where it was, and did not budge, while the two adversaries were bathed in perspiration with their unavailing efforts.

Had anyone ever seen such an absurd struggle?

Petray was foaming with rage.

"Deuce take the thing! If you want to come to grips, let's fight it out with our fists! There I can be sure of my resources. I'll smash you up, I promise you, so there won't be anything left of you."

"All right," retorted Raby, and lifting up the sleeve of his dolman, he put himself into a boxer's att.i.tude, and struck Petray two ringing blows with his bare muscular arm, that sent his opponent fairly reeling from sheer astonishment.

Now the judge set great store by his appearance. He therefore reflected that by such methods as these, his enraged antagonist might end in breaking his nose, or knocking out his teeth, and these were both contingencies to be avoided.

"Ah, leave me in peace," he cried piteously. "I am no boxer, I am a judge, a man of the law. If you have anything to bring against me, let it be at the tribunal, I'll meet you there fast enough. But I will neither fence, nor shoot, nor box on your wife's account. If you think I am the first whom your wife has fooled, I am not, by a long way. If you want to fight, look up Captain Lievenkopp--he lives out yonder at Zsambek. You have a bigger score to settle with him than with me, if you did but know it. He's ready for either swords or pistols. As judge, it's my duty to hinder a fight, not to promote it by myself taking part in one. Go to the tribunal, and I'll give you satisfaction there fast enough."

He spoke rapidly, but Raby did not wait to hear the end. He clapped his hat on, and jumped into his coach, and cried to the driver to drive to Zsambek.

CHAPTER XIX.

Raby only reached Zsambek the next morning. The dragoon-captain's house he found without any difficulty, for it stood close to the post-station.

There were two other officers with the captain, and three horses stood ready saddled in the courtyard. They were evidently on the point of starting for some expedition, though there was no sign of soldiers going with them.

"Aha, who is this?" cried Lievenkopp as Raby entered. "Why, bless me, it's Mathias Raby!"

"Yes, indeed, captain. Perhaps you can guess my errand here?"

"Truly, I cannot do any such thing."

"Well, my wife has run away from me."

"The deuce she has! What already? I did not think she would have gone quite so soon."

"I went first of all to Judge Petray to demand satisfaction of him. He would not give it me, but referred me to you."

"That was very kind of him."

"Now you know why I come."

"I know it, comrade, you want to fight me, sure enough? Very good; just choose one of these gentlemen as your second, and we will decide with him on the weapons. Only one thing delays our immediate meeting, and that is, I have to fight Gyongyom Miska."

Raby was electrified as he heard the name.

"Can't you leave him till later? You will never succeed in catching him."

"Aha, I've got him this time though; I am going at this very hour to fight a duel with him."

"Do you know who this Gyongyom Miska really is?" asked Raby.