The Chronicles of Count Antonio. Anthony Hope

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СКАЧАТЬ of Paul's eyes, but looked down on him and answered, "You must die. Yet there is your sword, and there a free road to the city."

      Then Paul let go Antonio's legs and rose, and drew his sword. But his hand was trembling, and he could scarce stand. Then Antonio gave to him a flask that he carried, holding strong waters; and the wretch, drinking greedily, found some courage, and came suddenly at Antonio before Antonio looked for his attack. But the Count eluded him, and drawing his blade awaited the attack; and Paul seized again the flask that he had flung on the ground, and drained it, and mad now with the fumes rushed at Antonio, shrieking curses and blasphemies. The sun rose on the moment that their blades crossed; and before its rays had shone a minute, Antonio had driven his sword through the howling wretch's lung, and Duke Paul lay dying on the grassy hill.

      Then Count Antonio stripped off his doublet and made a pillow of it for Paul's head, and sat down by him, and wiped his brow, and disposed his body with such ease as seemed possible. Yet he took no pains to stanch the blood or to minister to the wound, for his intent was that Paul should die and not live. And Paul lay some moments on his back, then twisted on his side; once he flung his legs wide and gathered them again under his body, and shivered, turning on his back again: and his jaw fell, and he died there on the top of the hill. And the Count closed his eyes, and sat by him in silence for many minutes; and once he buried his face in his hands, and a single sob shook him.

      But now it was growing to day, and he rose, and took from the Duke's waist the broad silken band that he wore, wrought with golden embroidery on a ground of royal blue. Then he took Paul in his arms and set him upright against the trunk of the tree, and, encircling tree and body with the rich scarf, he bound the corpse there; and he took the ivory tablet from his belt and tied the riband that hung through a hole in it to the riband of the Order of St. Prisian, that was round Paul's neck, and he wrote on the tablet, "Witness my hand—Antonio of Monte Velluto." And he wiped the blade of his sword long and carefully on the grass till it shone pure, clean, and bright again. Then he gazed awhile at the city, that grew now warm and rich in the increasing light of the sun, and turned on his heel and went down the hill by the way that he had come.

      At the foot, Tommasino and Martolo awaited him; and when he came down alone, Martolo again signed the cross; but Tommasino glanced one question, and, finding answer in Antonio's nod, struck his open palm on the quarters of Duke Paul's horse and set it free to go where it would; and the horse, being free, started at a canter along the road to the city. And Antonio mounted and set his face again towards the hills. For awhile he rode alone in front; but when an hour was gone, he called to Tommasino, and, on the lad joining him, talked with him, not gaily indeed (that could not be), yet with calmness and cheerfulness on the matters that concerned the band. But Paul's name did not cross his lips; and the manner in which he had dealt with Paul on the hill rested unknown till a later time, when Count Antonio formally declared it, and wrote with his own hand how Duke Paul had died. Thus, then, Count Antonio rode back to the hills, having executed on the body of Paul that which seemed to him right and just.

      Long had Duke Valentine waited for his brother in the summer-house and greatly wondered that he came not. And as the morning grew and yet Paul came not, the Duke feared that in some manner Antonio had detected the snare, and that he held Paul a prisoner; for it did not enter the Duke's mind that Antonio would dare to kill his brother. And when it was five o'clock, the Duke, heavy-eyed for want of sleep, left the summer-house, and having traversed the garden, entered his cabinet and flung himself on a couch there; and notwithstanding his uneasiness for his brother, being now very drowsy, he fell asleep. But before he had slept long, he was roused by two of his pages, who ran in crying that Duke Paul's horse had come riderless to the gate of the city. And the Duke sprang up, smiting his thigh, and crying, "If harm has come to him, I will not rest till I have Antonio's head." So he mustered a party of his guards, some on horseback and some on foot, and passed with all speed out of the city, seeking his brother, and vowing vengeance on the insolence of Count Antonio.

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