Adventure - London Jack (читать лучшие читаемые книги .TXT) 📗
He decided to give up the pursuit, and lay down in the grass, protected right and left by the row of palms, with 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 handkerchief 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 Tudor came. Sheldon happened to be looking in his direction at the moment he came into view, peering quickly up and down the avenue before he stepped 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 its 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, who 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 him off.
«Keep quiet, I tell you,» Sheldon commanded. «I'm satisfied with the outcome, and you've got to be. So you might as well give in and call 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 longer 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 the 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 gladdened 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 Tudor, 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.»
«We didn't fight for that reason. But there isn't time to explain. If you'll get dressings and bandages ready I'll look up 'gun-shot wounds' and see what's to be done.»
«Is he bleeding seriously?» she asked.
«No; the bullet seems to have missed the important arteries. But that would have been a pickle.»
«Then there's no need to bother about reading up,» Joan said. «And I'm just dying to hear what it was all about. The Apostle is lying becalmed inside the point, and her boats are out to wing. She'll be at anchor in five minutes, and Doctor Welshmere is sure to be on board. So all we've got to do is to make Tudor comfortable. We'd better put him in your room under the mosquito-netting, and send a boat off to tell Dr. Welshmere to bring his instruments.»
An hour afterward, Dr. Welshmere left the patient comfortable and attended to, and went down to the beach to go on board, promising to come back to dinner. Joan and Sheldon, standing on the veranda, watched him depart.
«I'll never have it in for the missionaries again since seeing them here in the Solomons,» she said, seating herself in a steamer– chair.
She looked at Sheldon and began to laugh.
«That's right,» he said. «It's the way I feel, playing the fool and trying to murder a guest.»
«But you haven't told me what it was all about.»
«You,» he answered shortly.
«Me? But you just said it wasn't.»
«Oh, it wasn't the kiss.» He walked over to the railing and leaned against it, facing her. «But it was about you all the same, and I may as well tell you. You remember, I warned you long ago what would happen when you wanted to become a partner in Berande. Well, all the beach is gossiping about it; and Tudor persisted in repeating the gossip to me. So you see it won't do for you to stay on here under present conditions. It would be better if you went away.»
«But I don't want to go away,» she objected with rueful countenance.
«A chaperone, then-«
«No, nor a chaperone.»
