“Scoundrel!” exclaimed Benito, who drew his manchetta from his belt
and put himself in position.
Manoel and Fragoso, by a similar movement, quickly drew their
weapons.
“Three against one!” said Torres.
“No! one against one!” answered Benito.
“Really! I should have thought an assassination would have better
suited an assassin’s son!”
“Torres!” exclaimed Benito, “defend yourself, or I will kill you like
a mad dog!”
“Mad! so be it!” answered Torres. “But I bite, Benito Dacosta, and
beware of the wounds!”
And then again grasping his manchetta, he put himself on guard and
ready to attack his enemy.
Benito had stepped back a few paces.
“Torres,” he said, regaining all his coolness, which for a moment he
had lost; “you were the guest of my father, you threatened him, you
betrayed him, you denounced him, you accused an innocent man, and
with God’s help I am going to kill you!”
Torres replied with the most insolent smile imaginable. Perhaps at
the moment the scoundrel had an idea of stopping any struggle between
Benito and him, and he could have done so. In fact he had seen that
Joam Dacosta had said nothing about the document which formed the
material proof of his innocence.
Had he revealed to Benito that he, Torres, possessed this proof,
Benito would have been that instant disarmed. But his desire to wait
till the very last moment, so as to get the very best price for the
document he possessed, the recollection of the young man’s insulting
words, and the hate which he bore to all that belonged to him, made
him forget his own interest.
In addition to being thoroughly accustomed to the manchetta, which he
often had had occasion to use, the adventurer was strong, active, and
artful, so that against an adversary who was scarcely twenty, who
could have neither his strength nor his dexgterity, the chances were
greatly in his favor.
Manoel by a last effort wished to insist on fighting him instead of
Benito.
“No, Manoel,” was the cool reply, “it is for me alone to avenge my
father, and as everyhthing here ought to be in order, you shall be my
second.”
“Benito!”
“As for you, Fragoso, you will not refuse if I ask you to act as
second for that man?”
“So be it,” answered Fragoso, “though it is not an office of honor.
Without the least ceremony,” he added, “I would have killed him like
a wild beast.”
The place where the duel was about to take place was a level bank
about fifty paces long, on the top of a cliff rising perpendicularly
some fifty feet above the Amazon. The river slowly flowed at the
foot, and bathed the clumps of reeds which bristled round its base.
There was, therefore, none too much room, and the combatant who was
the first to give way would quickly be driven over into the abyss.
The signal was given by Manoel, and Torres and Benito stepped
forward.
Benito had complete command over himself. The defender of a sacred
cause, his coolness was unruffled, much more so than that of Torres,
whose conscience insensible and hardened as it was, was bound at the
moment to trouble him.
The two met, and the first blow came from Benito. Torres parried it.
They then jumped back, but almost at the same instant they rushed
together, and with their left hands seized each other by the
shoulder–never to leave go again.
Torres, who was the strongest, struck a side blow with his manchetta
which Benito could not quite parry. His left side was touched, and
his poncho was reddened with his blood. But he quickly replied, and
slightly wounded Torres in the hand.
Several blows were then interchanged, but nothing decisive was done.
The ever silent gaze of Benito pierced the eyes of Torres like a
sword blade thrust to his very heart. Visibly the scoundrel began to
quail. He recoiled little by little, pressed back by his implacable
foe, who was more determined on taking the life of his father’s
denouncer than in defending his own. To strike was all that Benito
longed for; to parry was all that the other now attempted to do.