CHAPTER XXX.
A FIGHT AT THE TAVERN.
IT was a quiet time of the day, in a quiet part of the city. Adam discerned one or two individuals only and was not concerned with noting that he was suddenly preceded by a noiseless person, who hastened ahead of him to the tavern. The rover was much more occupied in observing the beauties of a horse that stood hitched to a post across the way from the public house.
The animal, a fine bay, imported from England, was the property of one of Randolph’s followers, a drinking young dandy with questionable ambitions and many extravagant tastes. Charmed by the horse’s impatience, as evinced by his pawing at the ground, Adam was tempted to get astride his back for a gallop.
However, after standing for a moment on the sidewalk, while his gaze caressed the champing animal, he turned and passed on into the tavern. Desiring to conclude his business as speedily as possible, he was somewhat annoyed to find the way to the bar, in front of the landlord, completely blocked by a great hulk of a creature, with a sword loosely girt about his loins, and two or three others, of whom the rover took less notice.
“By your leave,” he said, politely, not yet suspicious of the odd silence which had fallen on the company at his entrance, “I would like to get to the——”
“What!” roared the big lout, whom he had slightly touched upon the arm. “Who the devil are you? Keep your hands off of me, you fool!”
The person on whom Adam looked was Gallows, whose face, florid almost to being purple, was so savagely contorted as to comprise an insult in itself.
“My cross-eyed friend,” retorted Adam, whose temper had risen without delay, “have done looking at yourself, if you would see no fool. If you will tell me which hand I put on you, I’ll cut it off, else I may live to see it rot!”
The company had turned about at once. Pinchbecker was there, with his satellite, Psalms Higgler, the little white-eyed scamp that Adam had once dropped from the near-by window. The foppish young Englishman, who owned the horse outside, was likewise in the party. They all saw the burly Gallows turn to them hopelessly, befuddled by Adam’s answer.
“You be a fool!” he roared again, his eyes bulging out of their sockets in his wrath, “and I be the fool-killer!”
The company guffawed at this, the monster’s solitary sally of wit.
“You are a liar by the fact that you live,” said Rust. “Bah, you disgust me with the thought of having the duties, which you have so patently and outrageously neglected, thrust upon me. Begone. There’s no fire to roast a barbecue, if I should be minded to spit you!”
The creature looked again at his fellows, who had obviously egged him on.
“He insults you right prettily, good Gallows,” said the dandy, who was himself a rascal banished from his own country. “But he dare not fight you, we can see it plainly.”
“With you thrown in, I dare say there might be a moment’s sport in a most unsavory blood-letting,” said Rust, whose hand went to his sword-hilt calmly. “I should want some fresh air if I stuck either one of you carrion-fed buzzards.”
Gallows knew by this that it was time to draw his blade. “You be a fool and I be the fool-killer,” he roared as before, this being his best hold on language to suit the occasion. Only now he came for Adam like a butcher.
“Outside—go outside, gentlemen!” cried the landlord excitedly.
“Go outside!” said the voice of some one who was not visible. It was Randolph, concealed in the adjoining room and watching the proceedings through a narrow crack, where he had opened the door.
“Go on out, and I’ll fight you!” bellowed Gallows.
“After you,” said Rust, whose blade was out and being swiftly passed under his exacting eye. “Go out first. You will need one more breath than I.”
The brute obeyed, as if he had to do so and knew it, receiving Adam’s order like the clod he was.
The other creatures made such a scrambling to see the show, and otherwise evinced such an abnormal interest in the coming fight, that Adam had no trouble in divining that the whole affair had been prearranged, and that if he did not get killed, he would be arrested, should he slay his opponent. He concluded he was something of a match for the whole outfit.
“Have at you, mountain of foul meat,” he said, as he tossed down his hat. “What a mess you will make, done in slices!”
The young dandy laughed, despite himself, from his place by the door.
Gallows needed no further exasperations. He came marching up to Rust and made a hack at him, mighty enough and vicious enough to break down the stoutest guard and cleave through a man’s whole body as well.
Rust had expected no less than such a stroke. He spared his steel the task of parrying the Gallows’ slash. Nimbly leaping aside, he made a motion that had something debonair in its execution, and cut a ghastly big flap, like a steak, from the monster’s cheek.
The fellow let out an awful bellow and ran at his opponent, striking at him like a mad Hercules.
“Spare yourself, fool-killer,” said Adam. He dared to bow, as he dodged a mighty onslaught, in which Gallows used his sword like a hatchet, and then he flicked the giant’s ear away, bodily, taking something also of his jowl, for good measure.
The great hulk stamped about there like an ox, the blood hastening down from his face and being flung in spatters about him. Adam next cut him deeply in the muscle of his great left arm.
“I warm to my work,” he said, as he darted actively away and back. “Gentlemen, is your choice for a wing or a leg of the ill-smelling bird?”
The dandy, fresh from England, guffawed and cried “Bravo!” He had been born a gentleman, in spite of himself.
The fight was a travesty on equality. The monster was absolutely helpless. He was simply a vast machine for butchery, but he must needs first catch his victim before he could perform his offices. He was a terrible sight, with his great sword raised on high, or ripping downward through the air, as he ran, half blinded by his own gore, to catch the rover, who played with him, slicing him handily, determined not to kill the beast and so to incur a penalty for murder.
The creatures inside the tavern, appalled by the exhibition they had brought about, saw that their monster was soon to be a staggering tower of blood and wounds.
“Don’t let him get away! Kill him! Kill him!” said the voice of Randolph, from behind the others.
Adam heard him. He saw Pinchbecker shrink back at once. Psalms Higgler, however, glad of an excuse and ready to take advantage of a man already sufficiently beset, came scrambling out. The foppish gentleman was too much of a sport to take a hand against such a single swordsman as he found in Rust.
Aware that he was to have no chance, and convinced abruptly that these wretches had plotted to kill him, Adam deftly avoided Gallows, as the dreadful brute came again upon him, and slashing the fellow’s leg behind the knee, ham-strung him instantly.
Roaring like a wounded bull, the creature dropped down on his side, and then got upon his hands and knees and commenced to crawl, wiping out his eyes with his reddened hands.
Unable to restrain his rage, and fearing his intended victim would yet avoid him, Higgler being already at bay and disarmed, Randolph came abruptly out from the tavern himself, pistol in hand, to perform the task which otherwise was doomed to failure.
“Call the guard!” he cried. “Call the guard!”
Adam had been waiting for some such treachery. He cut at the pistol the second it rose, knocking it endways and slicing Randolph’s arm, superficially, from near the wrist to the elbow. He waited then for nothing more.
Across the road, before any one guessed his intention, he was up on the back of the horse, before the yelled protest of the English gentleman came to his ears.
“Gentlemen all,” he called to the group, “good evening.”
Clapping his heels to the ribs of the restive animal, he rode madly away, just as Isaiah Pinchbecker, with half a dozen constables came running frantically upon the scene.