CHAPTER IV.THE MIDNIGHT DUEL.
The conflict is over, the struggle is past—I have looked, I have loved, I have worshiped my last—And now back to the world, and let fate do her worstOn the heart that for thee such devotion has nursed.For thee its best feelings were wasted away,And life hath hereafter not one to betray.Farewell, then, thou loved one—oh, loved but too well,Too deeply, too blindly for language to tell!Farewell, thou hast trampled my love’s faith in the dust,Thou hast torn from my bosom my faith and my trust;But if thy life’s current with bliss it would swell,I would pour out my own in this last fond farewell!
The conflict is over, the struggle is past—I have looked, I have loved, I have worshiped my last—And now back to the world, and let fate do her worstOn the heart that for thee such devotion has nursed.For thee its best feelings were wasted away,And life hath hereafter not one to betray.Farewell, then, thou loved one—oh, loved but too well,Too deeply, too blindly for language to tell!Farewell, thou hast trampled my love’s faith in the dust,Thou hast torn from my bosom my faith and my trust;But if thy life’s current with bliss it would swell,I would pour out my own in this last fond farewell!
The conflict is over, the struggle is past—I have looked, I have loved, I have worshiped my last—And now back to the world, and let fate do her worstOn the heart that for thee such devotion has nursed.For thee its best feelings were wasted away,And life hath hereafter not one to betray.
The conflict is over, the struggle is past—
I have looked, I have loved, I have worshiped my last—
And now back to the world, and let fate do her worst
On the heart that for thee such devotion has nursed.
For thee its best feelings were wasted away,
And life hath hereafter not one to betray.
Farewell, then, thou loved one—oh, loved but too well,Too deeply, too blindly for language to tell!Farewell, thou hast trampled my love’s faith in the dust,Thou hast torn from my bosom my faith and my trust;But if thy life’s current with bliss it would swell,I would pour out my own in this last fond farewell!
Farewell, then, thou loved one—oh, loved but too well,
Too deeply, too blindly for language to tell!
Farewell, thou hast trampled my love’s faith in the dust,
Thou hast torn from my bosom my faith and my trust;
But if thy life’s current with bliss it would swell,
I would pour out my own in this last fond farewell!
For an instant the lifeblood around John Dinsmore’s heart seemed to stand still, and his eyes fairly bulged from their sockets. No, it was no trick of his imagination, the slim, aristocratic hand of his rival, upon which he gazed so breathlessly, bore upon it a ring of curious device—a serpent’s body, and deeply imbedded in the flat head was a triangle of diamonds, in the center of which was a large diamond of rare brilliancy and beauty.
It was the identical ring his friends had described as being worn by the man whom they were at that moment hunting down to charge with a terrible crime.
Ere he could utter the words that arose to his lips, RaymondChalloner turned away from him, saying, with a haughty sneer:
“It is well you accept my challenge, John Dinsmore; I will meet you on the spot designated by you upon the beach, at exactly an hour from now. Until then adieu, most worthy champion of the fair sex, adieu!”
Challoner walked down the length of the broad piazza with the easy, graceful swagger peculiar to him, his friends about him, talking in subdued voices, yet anxiously and excitedly, over the event which had just transpired, and discussing in still lower whispers the probable outcome of the meeting, until they were lost alike to sight and sound.
Still John Dinsmore stood there where they had left him, like an image carved in stone, his eyes following the direction in which they had disappeared.
And standing thus, a terrible temptation came to him, a temptation so strong that for a moment it almost overpowered him.
He had only to send quickly for his friends, who had gone to the train to meet the detective, and tell them what he had seen, to bring about the overthrow of his rival in the very hour of his triumph.
The lover who had been accepted by Queenie Trevalyn as her affianced husband, would be taken from the hotel in handcuffs. Ah, what a glorious revenge; sweetened by the thought that Challoner would thus be parted forever from the girl whom he had loved so madly, and lost.
Then the nobler side of John Dinsmore’s nature struggled for mastery. Could he, a dismissed suitor, cast the first stone at his successful rival? Would it be manly, or ignoble?
How Queenie Trevalyn would hate him for it! That thought settled the matter, his rival should not come to his downfall through him. Far better that Challoner’s bullet should pierce his heart.
He stood quite motionless, leaning heavily against the massive pillar of the piazza, lost in deep reverie, thinking it all over.
What had he to live for, now that Queenie Trevalynwas lost to him forever? Death seemed far more desirable to him than life—without her.
He knew that Raymond Challoner was considered an excellent shot; that every one declared him particularly clever in the use of firearms; but that knowledge did not deter John Dinsmore from his purpose.
When his friends entered the hotel, a little later, they found a summons from him awaiting them, explaining briefly the affair on hand, which was to come off within an hour, and asking them to meet him on the beach, at the place and time indicated.
“Whew!” exclaimed Ballou, with a long, low whistle. “What will Dinsmore be getting into next? Knowing him as well as I do, I realize that it is useless to attempt to talk him out of this affair of honor, as he calls it. Heaven grant that he may not fall a victim of his opponent’s superior marksmanship. Of course I don’t know what the deadly quarrel between them is about, but——”
His friend, Gaines, cut him short by announcing that they had no time to speculate as to the cause of the contemplated duel, as they had barely time to reach the place described—a sort of cove shut in by high, shelving rocks, fully a mile from the hotel.
“John has given us no time to see him first, and attempt to mediate between him and his antagonist,” said Gaines, seizing his hat, which he had but just removed.
“Can nothing be done to prevent the affair from being carried out?” queried Ballou, turning his white, worried, anxious face toward his friend.
“It seems not,” returned Gaines, in a voice equally as troubled.
The two friends spoke no other word until they came within sight of the place. Then Ballou whispered:
“Both principals are on the ground, also his opponent’s seconds; they are evidently awaiting us.”
This proved to be the case. The antagonists were already facing each other, weapons in hand.
Although John Dinsmore had determined that it should not be his lips which should speak proclaiming his rival’s suspected guilt of a former crime, he supposed, when his friends came to his aid, their sharp eyes would soon discernthe ring. His thoughts carried him no farther than that.
In the excitement attending the meeting of his opponent upon the beach, he failed to notice that Raymond Challoner had removed the ring.
Both friends knew, as they rapidly approached, that it was too late to interfere; the two combatants stood facing each other, fifteen paces apart, weapons in hand.
Challoner’s second conferred with Ballou for a moment, then they announced that all was in readiness.
A deathlike silence ensued, broken only by the sobbing of the wind and the dash of the waves, beating a solemn requiem upon the shore. Slowly the command was given:
“One—two—three—fire!”
Simultaneously the report of the two pistol shots rang out upon the midnight air, followed instantly by the sound of a body falling heavily upon the sands.
John Dinsmore had fallen upon his face, the lifeblood from a wound in his breast coloring the white beach crimson about him.
In a trice his two friends were bending over him, beside the doctor, who was making a rapid examination to find out the extent of the wounded man’s injuries; believing, however, that Raymond Challoner’s opponent was beyond all human aid. He had figured at several of these affairs of honor in which Challoner had been engaged, and had never yet known him to fail to strike the heart at which he aimed.
“He brought it on himself,” said Challoner, addressing his second. “He would have it!” and he turned away upon his heel with a mocking sneer curling his cynical lips. Tossing his weapon to his second, he nonchalantly resumed his hat and coat, and walked coolly away toward the hotel, not deigning to cast one glance backward, even to take the trouble to inquire whether his victim was alive, or dead.
Both of the fallen man’s friends heard him remark, as a parting shot:
“Such is the fate of any one who attempts to meddle in my affairs.”
“Your friend is not dead,” said the doctor, hastily, anxious to attract their attention from Challoner, fearing perhaps a double or a triple duel might result from this affair.
“He is badly wounded, there is no doubt about that, but in my opinion the wound is not necessarily fatal. I have every hope that we shall be able to pull him through, with this splendid physique to aid us.”
The two friends breathed more freely, and Gaines said, slowly:
“If he were to die, the man who murdered him would have the opportunity to try his hand next on me.”
“And after that on me,” remarked Ballou, “in case he should escape your bullet.”
“The first thing to be attended to is to get him away from here,” cut in the doctor, quietly. Adding: “As the hotel is to close within a few short hours, they would not receive him there. I propose removing him at once to a little cottage I know of adjacent to this place, in which lives an old nurse whom I often employ. She will willingly take him in and do her best for him.”
The two friends received this suggestion gratefully.
Between the three of them, they succeeded in conveying him to the place indicated, without loss of time, and there the doctor made a further examination of his injuries.
“Mr. Challoner’s bullet missed its aim by a single hair’s breadth,” he said; “but with Mrs. Brent’s careful nursing, we may hope for much.”
It was with the greatest of regret that the two friends left Newport the next day for New York, leaving John Dinsmore, who had not yet regained consciousness, in the hands of the doctor, who was a resident of the place, and the aged nurse.
Everything had gone wrong with them; they had been unable, even with the aid of the skillful detective, to find the slightest trace of the man for whom they were looking, and concluded that he had left the resort ere they had reached it, having been informed in advance in some mysterious manner of their coming.
Meanwhile, the girl for whom John Dinsmore hadrisked his noble life a second time, was pacing up and down the floor of her elegant suite of rooms, with a very perturbed countenance, reading for the twentieth time the letter which her mother had but just received, read but half through, and had fainted outright; recovering only to go from one violent fit of hysterics into another.
Queenie Trevalyn had read it slowly through twice, controlling her emotions with a supreme effort.
It was from her father, and announced his utter failure in New York.
He had made an unsuccessful venture in Wall Street, and the result was that every dollar he had on earth had been swept from him.
“When you return to the city,” he wrote, “instead of your own home, it will be to a boarding house. For myself I care not; but my heart bleeds for you, my dear wife, and Queenie, knowing full well how much you both love the luxurious trappings of wealth and position! But my grief cannot mend matters. Our only hope of retrieving our fallen fortunes is by Queenie marrying money.”