"Ads my life!" cried Haward. "Leave my affairs alone!"
Both men were upon their feet. "I took you for a gentleman," said the
Highlander, breathing hard. "I said to myself: 'Duart is overseas where I
cannot serve him. I will take this other for my chief'"-"That is for a Highland cateran and traitor," interrupted Haward, pleased
to find another dart, but scarcely aware of how deadly an insult he was
dealing.
In a flash the blow was struck. Juba, in the next room, hearing the noise
of the overturned table, appeared at the door. "Set the table to rights
and light the candles again," said his master calmly. "No, let the cards
lie. Now begone to the quarters! 'Twas I that stumbled and overset the
table."
Following the slave to the door he locked it upon him; then turned again
to the room, and to MacLean standing waiting in the centre of it. "Under
the circumstances, we may, I think, dispense with preliminaries. You will
give me satisfaction here and now?"
"Do you take it at my hands?" asked the other proudly. "Just now you
reminded me that I was your servant. But find me a sword"-Haward went to a carved chest; drew from it two rapiers, measured the
blades, and laid one upon the table. MacLean took it up, and slowly passed
the gleaming steel between his fingers. Presently he began to speak, in a
low, controlled, monotonous voice: "Why did you not leave me as I was? Six
months ago I was alone, quiet, dead. A star had set for me; as the lights
fail behind Ben More, it was lost and gone. You, long hated, long looked
for, came, and the star arose again. You touched my scars, and suddenly I
esteemed them honorable. You called me friend, and I turned from my enmity
and clasped your hand. Now my soul goes back to its realm of solitude and
hate; now you are my foe again." He broke off to bend the steel within his
hands almost to the meeting of hilt and point. "A hated master," he ended,
with bitter mirth, "yet one that I must thank for grace extended. Forty
stripes is, I believe, the proper penalty."
Haward, who had seated himself at his escritoire and was writing, turned
his head. "For my reference to your imprisonment in Virginia I apologize.
I demand the reparation due from one gentleman to another for the
indignity of a blow. Pardon me for another moment, when I shall be at your
service."
He threw sand upon a sheet of gilt-edged paper, folded and superscribed
it; then took from his breast a thicker document. "The Solebay,
man-of-war, lying off Jamestown, sails at sunrise. The captain--Captain
Meade--is my friend. Who knows the fortunes of war? If by chance I should
fall to-night, take a boat at the landing, hasten upstream, and hail the
Solebay. When you are aboard give Meade--who has reason to oblige me--this
letter. He will carry you down the coast to Charleston, where, if you
change your name and lurk for a while, you may pass for a buccaneer and be
safe enough. For this other paper"--He hesitated, then spoke on with some
constraint: "It is your release from servitude in Virginia,--in effect,
your pardon. I have interest both here and at home--it hath been many
years since Preston--the paper was not hard to obtain. I had meant to give
it to you before we parted to-night. I regret that, should you prove the
better swordsman, it may be of little service to you."