He went down the ladder as swiftly as he could, skipping steps, sliding his hands along the railings. By then Tsoukas had gotten on his hands and knees. His head hung low, and he was shaking it.
Cyrano knelt by him. “Do not worry, my friend. I am here.”
Tsoukas groaned and pitched forward into a puddle of blood.
“Mordioux!”
He felt Tsoukas’ pulse.
“Merde!”
The fellow was dead.
But perhaps the other two were still alive.
A swift examination dispelled his hope.
He rose, and whirled, his hand going to the butt of his bolstered pistol. Here came that lone man, a brave person but a nuisance. Why had he not fallen into the water and so saved Cyrano the trouble of killing him and himself the irreparable harm of being killed?
“Ayyy!”
The pistol was empty; he had forgotten to load it. And there was no time to pick up one from the deck, to use the gun dropped by a dead man. Indeed, there was scarcely time to unsheath his sword and so prevent this audacious fellow from running him through. Boynton would have to wait for him a few seconds longer. That surely would be sufficient to dispose of this obstacle.
“En garde!”
The man was a trifle shorter than himself. But, whereas Cyrano was as thin as a rapier, this foolish person was as sturdy as the shaft of a war axe. His shoulders were broad, his chest was deep, and his arms were thick. He had a dark, Arabic-looking face of imposing structure, though his lips were too thick, and his blazing black eyes and white grin made him look like a pirate. He wore only a cloth fastened around the waist.
With those wrists, Cyrano thought, his antagonist would make an excellent saberman-if he had the skill to match his muscle.
But with a rapier, where speed, not strength, was most important, ah, that was a different matter.
After the first few seconds, Cyrano knew that, whatever the man’s aptitude with the saber was, he had never crossed blades with the likes of such before.
Cyrano’s parries, attacks, advances and retreats, lunges and recoveries were equally matched. Fortunately, the devil did not so far have the slightest superiority in quickness. If he had, he would have run his opponent through.
He must know, however, that he was fighting another master. Even so, he was still smiling, seemingly undaunted, but behind his savage mask must be a realization that he would die if he became a fraction of a second slower in reflex and judgment.
Time was on the side of the dark man. He had no place to go, nothing to do but fight, and Cyrano had to get to the machine soon. Boynton must know that Cyrano was still alive, since Sturtevant had seen him in the wheelhouse. He would be wondering what was keeping him.
Would he wait a few minutes longer, and then, his chief not showing, think that he was dead for some unaccountable reason? Would he then take off? Or would he send someone to investigate?
There was not time to think about such matters. This devil was countering every maneuver, just as Cyrano was countering his. It was a stalemate, though there was certainly nothing stale about this. The attacking and the defending blades flashed almost in rhythm with each other.
Ah! Knowing this, the fellow had broken the rhythm. Once the rhythm was well established a fencer had a tendency to continue the sequence of motion. This almost unparalleled swordsman had hesitated slightly, hoping that Cyrano would follow the rhythm himself and so be spitted.
He had underestimated his man. Cyrano adjusted in the split second needed and so saved himself from a bad wound. But the point did penetrate his upper right arm slightly.
Cyrano came out of the retreat with a lunge which was parried. Not quite well enough. The man’s arm also bore a slight wound.
”You have the honor of the first blood,” Cyrano said in Esperanto. “And that is indeed an honor. No other man has ever succeeded in doing that.”
It was foolish to waste desperately needed breath in conversation. Cyrano, however, was as curious as the alley cat he resembled.