He stopped his horse. He could hear the gun wheels ahead of him, and closer, apparently on a ride that must have pierced the wood parallel to the road, the sound of hooves as a troop of cavalry splashed northwards.
Another voice nagged at Lord John. He could not bear it if another man was to take Jane. Jealousy racked him. He had persuaded himself that her sudden desperation to marry him was a measure of Jane’s passionate love, and to think of that passion being expended for another man’s happiness was more than he could endure.
A curb chain clinked. Lord John looked up to see his enemy in front of him. Sharpe must have guessed Lord John would double back under the cover of the trees, and so had ridden slantwise to where the wood met the road, then turned eastwards. Now, just twenty paces off, he sat his horse and stared at Lord John.
Lord John felt oddly calm. A few moments before his nerves had been jangled by a squirrel, but now that his enemy had come, and now that he knew what had to be done, he surprised himself by his calmness.
Neither man spoke. There was nothing to say.
Lord John licked the rainwater from his lips. If he drew his sword then he knew the green-jacketed killer would be on him like a fury, so he kept his hand well away from the silver-wrapped hilt of his sword, and instead, not caring for honour, he drew the long-barrelled pistol that was holstered on his saddle. It was a beautiful gun, a gift from Jane, with a percussion cap instead of a flint. Its elegantly curved pistol-hilt was of chased walnut and its long rifled barrel was blued and gilded. The rifling gave the weapon a deadly accuracy, while the expensive percussion cap made it proof against the worst downpour of rain. He drew back the hammer, exposing the small copper wafer in which the gunpowder was packed. When that wafer was struck a lance of flame would pierce through the touchhole to spark themain charge.
He raised the gun. His right hand shook slightly. Sharpe had made no move to defend himself, neither by flight nor by drawing a weapon of his own. Rainwater beaded the gun’s barrel. Its blade foresight wavered. Lord John tried to remember his tuition. He must not be tense. He should take a deep breath, let half the air out of his lungs, momentarily hold his breath and, at the same instant, squeeze the trigger gently.
Sharpe urged his horse forward.
The sudden movement disconcerted Lord John, and the gun shook in his hand as he tried to follow Sharpe’s advance. Sharpe seemed utterly oblivious of the pistol’s threat, as though he had not even seen the weapon.
Lord John stared into his enemy’s eyes. He knew he should pull the trigger, but he was suddenly paralysed by fear. He could hear voices not very far off in the wood and he felt a dreadful fear that the murder might be witnessed, and Lord John knew it would be murder, and he knew the only mercy shown to him as a lord would be that he would be publicly hanged with a rope made of silk instead of a rope made from hemp. He wanted to pull the trigger, but his finger would not move, and all the time the hooves of Sharpe’s horse slurred through the thick wet leaf mould until the Rifleman was so close to Lord John that the two men could have shaken hands without even leaning from their saddles. Sharpe had not once taken his eyes from Lord John’s eyes even though the pistol was now just inches from his face.
Very slowly, Sharpe raised his right hand and pushed the pistol away. The movement seemed to startle Lord John from his trance, and he tried to pull the weapon back, but Sharpe had gripped the barrel firmly and now twisted it from Lord John’s nerveless fingers. Lord John, expecting death, shivered.
Sharpe made the gun safe by lowering the hammer onto the percussion cap. Then, holding the barrel in his right hand and the curved stock in his left, he began levering the weapon apart. It took all his strength, but suddenly the wooden stock split away from the barrel pins and, when the trigger assembly had been wrenched loose, Sharpe was holding the gun in two useless halves which, still without a word, he dropped into Rossendale’s lap. The expensive barrel slid down to thump on the leaves, while the torn walnut stock lodged by his lordship’s topboot.