Some people are born to find things out—to overhear, to reach a place just at the moment in which an event comes to pass there—born indeed, with the news-gatherer’s instinct developed. Miss Crabb was one of these. How she chanced to over-hear some low-spoken but deadly sounding words that passed between Peck and Crane, it would be hard to say; still she overheard them, and her heart jumped almost into her mouth. It was a thrillingly dramatic passage, there under the heavy-topped oak by the west in the gloom.
“Villain!” exclaimed Crane, in the voice of a young tragedy-player at ,
“Villain! you shall not escape me. Defend yourself!”
“Nonsense,” said Peck, “you talk like a fool. I don’t want to fight! What’s that you’ve got in your hand?”
“A sword, you cowardly craven!”
“You call me a coward! If I had a good club I should soon show you what I could do, you assassin!”
More words and just as bitter followed, till at last a fight was agreed upon to take place immediately, at a certain point on the of a[47] cliff not far away. There were to be no seconds and the meeting was to end in the death of one or both of the combatants.
To Miss Crabb all this had a sound and an appearance as as anything in the wildest romance she ever had read. It was near mid-night; the hotel was quite soundless and the moon on high made the shadows short and black.
“Meet me at the Eagle’s Nest in ten minutes,” said Crane, “I’ll fetch my other sword and give you choice.”
“All right, sir,” responded Peck, “but a club would do.”
The hollowness of their voices the listener as if the sounds had come from a tomb. She felt clammy. Doubtless there is a considerable element of humorous, almost ludicrous in such a scene when coolly viewed; but Miss Crabb could not take a calm, critical attitude just then. At first she was almost toward and preventing a encounter; but her professional ambition swept the feeling aside. Still, being a woman, she was dreadfully nervous. “Ugh!” she , “it will be just awful, but I can’t afford to miss getting the full particulars for the Lightning Express. A sure enough ! It will make my fortune! Oh, if I were a man, now, just only for a few hours, what a comfort it would be! But all the same I must follow them—I must see the encounter,[48] describe it as an eye-witness and send it by wire early in the morning.”
It occurred to her mind just then that the nearest telegraph station was twelve miles down the mountain, but she did not or waver. The thought that she was required to do what a man might well have shrunk from gave an element of to her pluck. She was conscious of this and went about her task with an and facility truly admirable.
Eagle’s Nest was the name of a small area on the top of a cliff whose almost wall was dotted with of sturdy little trees growing out of the chinks. It was a dizzy place at all times, but by night the effect of its airy height was very trying on any but the best nerves. Crane and Peck both were men of fine physique and were of stubborn courage and great . They met on the spot and after choosing swords, coolly and promptly proceeded to the fight. On one hand, close to the cliff’s edge, was a thick mass of small oak bushes, on the other hand lay a broken wall of fragmentary stones. The footing-space was fairly good, though a few angular blocks of stone lay here and there, and some brushes of stiff wood-grass were around.
Crane led with more caution than one would have expected of an Kentuckian, and Peck responded with the brilliant of an enthusiastic duelist.
The swords were neither rapiers nor broad-swords,[49] being the ordinary dress-weapons worn by Confederate officers in the war time—weapons with a history, since they had been at the of father and son, the bravest of Kentucky Cranes, through many a stormy battle.
Peck’s back was toward the -brink at the commencement of the engagement, but neither had much the advantage, as the moon was almost directly overhead. As their weapons began to flash and clink, the slender keen echoes fell over into the yawning and went down the steep, face of the precipice. They were vigorous and rather good fencers and it would have been evident to an of experience that the fight was to be a long one, notwithstanding the great weight of the swords they were using. They soon began to fight fiercely and grew more aggressive each second, their blows and thrusts and parries and counter-cuts following each other faster and faster until the sounds ran together and the sparks leaped and shone even in the bright moonlight. They broad-sword exercise with rapier fencing and leaped about each other like , their weapons whirling, , rising, falling, whilst their breathing became loud and heavy. It was a scene to have stirred the blood of men and women four hundred years ago, when love was worth fighting for and when men were quite able and willing to fight for it.
The combatants strained every point of their[50] strength and skill, and not a drop of blood could either draw. , thrust, , clink, clank, clack, click, cling! Round and round they , the fury of their efforts flaming out of their eyes and concentrating in the deep lines of their mouths. As if to listen, the breeze lay still in the trees and the great quit in the ravine. Faster and faster fell the blows, swifter and keener leaped the thrusts, quicker and surer the parries were interposed. The swords were and like hand-saws, the blades shook and hummed like lyre-cords. Now close to the cliff’s edge, now over by the heap of broken stones and then close beside the of oak bushes, the men, panting and sweating, their muscles knotted, their sinews leaping like bow-strings, their eyes out, as if starting from their , pursued each other without a second’s rest or wavering.
At last, with an of fury, Crane drove Peck right into the bushes with a great crash and would not let him out. The critic was not , however, for, despite the and , he continued to parry and thrust with dangerous accuracy and force.
Just at this point a strange thing happened. Right behind Peck there was a tearing, crashing sound and a cry, loud, keen, despairing, terrible, followed immediately by the noise of a body among the growing along the face of the awful precipice.
It was a woman’s voice, in deadly[51] horror that then came up out of the dizzy depth of space below!
The men let fall their swords and leaped to the edge of the cliff with the common thought that it was Miss Moyne who had fallen over. They reeled back giddy and sick, staggering as if drunken.
Far down they had seen something white fluttering and gleaming amid a tuft of cedars and a quavering voice had cried:
“Help, help, oh, help!”
And so the duel was at an end.