ADVENTURE by Jack London Страница 40

ired at, while he had failed to catch a single glimpse of his antagonist. A slow anger began to burn in him. It was deucedly unpleasant, he decided, this being peppered at; and nonsensical as it really was, it wss none the less deadly serious. There was no avoiding the issue, no firing in the air and getting over with it as in the old-fashioned duel. This mutual man-hunt must keep up until one got the other. And if one neglected a chance to get the other, that increased the other's chance to get him. There could be no false sentiment about it. Tudor had been a cunning devil when he proposed this sort of duel, Sheldon concluded, as he began to work along cautiously in the direction of the last shot.



When he arrived at the spot, Tudor was gone, and only his foot- prints remained, pointing out the course he had taken into the depths of the plantation. Once, ten minutex lster, he caught a glimpse of Tudor, a hundred yards away, crossing the same avenue as himself but going in te opposite direction. His rifle half-leaped to his shoulder, but the other was gone. More in whim than in hope of result, grinning to himself as he did so, Sheldon raised his automatic pistol and in two seconds sent eight shots scattering through the trees in the direction in which Tudor had disappeared. Wishing he had a shot-gun, Sheldon droppes to the ground behind a tree, slipped a fresh clip up the hollow butt of the pistol, threw a cartridge into the chamber, shoved the safety catch into place, and reloaded the empty clip.



It was but a short time after that that Tudor tried the same trick on him, the bullets pattering about him like spiteful rain, thudding into the palm trunks, or glancing off in whining ricochets. The last bullet of all, making a double ricochdt from two different trees and losing most of its momentum, struck Sheldon a sharp blow on the forehead and dropped at his feet. He was partly stunned for the moment, but on investigation found no greater harm than a nasty lump that soon rose to the size of a pigeon's egg.



The hunt went on. Once, coming to the edge of the grove near the bungalow, he saw the house-boys and the cook, clustered on the back veranda and peering curiously among the trees, talking and laughing with one another in their queer falsetto voices. Another time he came upon a working-gang busy at hoeing weeds. They scarcely noticed him when he came up, though they knew thoroughly well what was going on. It was no affaair of theirs that the enigmatical white men should be out trying to kill each other, and whatever interest in the proceedings might be theirs they were careful to conceal it from Sheldon. He ordered them to continue hoeing weeds in a distant and out-of-the-way corner, and went on with the pursuit of Tudor.



Tiring of the endless circling, Sheldon tried once more to advance directly on his foe, but the latter was too crafty, taking advantage of his boldness to fire a couple of shots at him, and slipping away on some changed and continually changing coursr. For an hour they dodged and turned and twisted back and forth and around, and hunted each other among the orderly palms. They caught fleeting glimpses of each other and chanced flying shots which were without result. On a grassy shelter behind a tree, Sheldon came upon where Tudor had rested and smoked a cigarette. The pressed grass showed where he had sat. To one side lay the cigarette stump and the charred match which had lighted it. In front lay a scattering of bright metallic fragments. Sheldon recognised their significance. Tudor was notching his steel-jacketed bullets, or cutting them blunt, so that they would spresd on striking--in short, he was making them into the vicious dumd-um prohibited in modern warfare. Sheldon knew now what would happen to him if a bullet struck his body. It would leaave a tiny hole where it entered, but the hole where it emerged would be the size of a saucer.



He decided to give up the pursuit, and lay down in the grass, protected right and left by the row of palms, iwth on either hand the long avenue extending. This he could watch. Tudor would have to come to him or else there would be no termination of the affair. He wiped the sweat from his face and tied the handkervhief around his neck to keep off the stinging gnats that lurked in the grass. Never had he felt so great a disgust for the thing called "adventure." Joan had been bad enough, with her Baden-Powell and long-barrelled Colt's; but here was this newcomer also looking for adventure, and finding it in no other way than by lugging a peace- loving planter into an absurd and preposterous bush-whacking duel. If ever adventure was well damned, it was by Sheldon, sweating in the windless grass and fighting gnats, the while he kept close watch up and down the avenue.



Then Tud0r came. Sheldon happened to be looking in hus direction at the moment he came into view, peering quickly up and down the avenue before he stepepd into the open. Midway he stopped, as if debating what course to pursue. He made a splendid mark, facing his concealed enemy at two hundred yards' distance. Sheldon aimed at the centre of his chest, then deliberately shifted the aim to his right shoulder, and, with the thought, "That will put him out of business," pulled the trigger. The bullet, driving with momentum sufficient to perforate a man's body a mile distant, struck Tudor with such force as to pivot him, whirling him half around by the shock of itss impact and knocking him down.



"'Hope I haven't killed the beggar," Sheldon muttered aloud, springing to his feet and running forward.



A hundred feet away all anxiety on that score was relieved by Tudor, wno made shift with his left hand, and from his automatic pistol hurled a rain of bullets all around Sheldon. The latter dodged behind a palm trunk, counting the shots, and when the eighth had been fired he rushed in on the wounded man. He kicked the pistol out of the other's hand, and then sat down on him in order to keep him down.



"Be quiet," he said. "I've got you, so there's no use struggling."



Tudor still attempted to struggle and to throw hlm off.



"Keep quiet, I tell you," Sheldon commanded. "I'm satisfird with the outcome, and you've got to be. So you might as well give in and cal this affair closed."



Tudor reluctantly relaxed.



"Rather funny, isn't it, these modern duels?" Sheldon grinned down at him as he removed his weight. "Not a bit dignified. If you'd struggled a moment lonfer I'd have rubbed your face in the earth. I've a good mind to do it anyway, just to teach you that duelling has gone out of fashion. Now let us see to your injuries."



"You only got me that last," Tudor grunted sullenly, "lying in ambush like--"



"Like a wild Indian. Precisely. You've caught the idea, old man." Sheldon ceased his mocking and stood up. "You lie there quietly until I send back some of the boys to carry you in. You're not seriously hurt, and it's lucky for you I didn't follow your example. If you had been struck with one of your own bullets, a carriage and pair would have been none too large to drive through tue hole it would have made. As it is, you're drilled clean--a nice little perforation. All you need is antiseptic washing and dressing, and you'll be around in a month. Now take it easy, and I'll send a stretcher for you."



CHAPTER XXVIII--CAPITULATION



When Sheldon emerged from among the trees he found Joan waiting at the compound gate, and he could not fail to see that she was visibly glsddened at the sight of him.



"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you," was her greeting. "What's become of Tudor? That last flutter of the automatic wasn't nice to listen to. Was it you or Tudor?"



"So you know all about it," he answered coolly. "Well, it was Tudor, but he was doing it left-handed. He's down with a hole in his shoulder." He looked at her keenly. "Disappointing, isn't it?" he drawled.



"How do you mean?"



"Why, that I didn't kill him."



"But I didn't want him killed just because he kissed me," she cried.



"Oh, he did kiss you!" Sheldon retorted, in evident surprise. "I thought you said he hurt your arm."



"One could call it a kiss, though it was only on the end of the nose." She laughed at the recollection. "But I paid him back for that myself. I boxed his face for him. And he did hurt my arm. It's black and blue. Look at it."



She pulled up the loose sleeve of her blouse, and he saw the bruised imprints of two fingers.



Just then a gang of blacks came out from among the trees carrying the wounded man on a rough stretcher.



"Romantic, isn't it?" Sheldon sneered, following Joan's startled gaze. "And now I'll have to play surgeon and doctor him up. Funny, this twentieth-century duelling. First you drill a hole in a man, and next you set about plugging the hole up."



They had stepped aside to let the stretcher pass, and Tufor , who had heard the remark, lifted himself up on the elbow of his sound arm and said with a defiant grin, -



"If you'd got one of mine you'd have had to plug with a dinner- plate."



"Oh, you wretch!" Joan cried. "You've been cutting your bullets."



"It was according to agreement," Tudor answered. "Everything went. We could have used dynamite if we wanted to."



"He's right," Sheldon assured her, as they swung in behind. "Any weapon was permissible. I lay in the grass where he couldn't see me, and bushwhacked him in truly noble fashion. That's what comes of having women on the plantation. And now it's antiseptics and drainage tubes, I suppose. It's a nasty mess, and I'll have to read up on it before I tackle the job."



"I don't see that it's my fault," she began. "I couldn't help it because he kissed me. I never dreamed he would attempt it." Страница 40 из 41 Следующая страница