The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard - How the Brigadier Slew The Brothers of Ajaccio Part 3

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Part 3 of Chapter 2 of The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
The Emperor had paused, and these two strangers came to a stand also within a few paces of us. I had drawn up close to my companion's elbow so that the four of us were facing each other without a word spoken. My eyes were particularly fixed upon the taller one, because he was slightly the nearer to me, and I became certain, as I watched him, that he was in the last state of nervousness. His lean figure was quivering all over, and I heard a quick, thin panting like that of a tired dog. Suddenly, one of them gave a short, hissing signal. The tall man bent his back and his knees like a diver about to spring, but before he could move, I had jumped with drawn sabre in front of him. At the same instant, the smaller man bounded past me, and buried a long poneyard in the emperor's heart.
My God, the horror of that moment! It is a marvel that I did not drop dead myself. As in a dream, I saw the gray coat whirl convulsively round, and caught a glimpse in the moonlight of three inches of red point, which jutted out from between the shoulders. Then down he fell with a dead man's gasp upon the grass, and the assassin, leaving his weapon buried in his victim, threw up both his hands and shrieked with joy. But I, I drove my sword through his midriff with such frantic force that the mere blow of the hilt against the end of his breastbone sent him six paces before he fell, and left my reeking blade ready for the other. I sprang round upon him with such a lust for blood upon me as I had never felt, and never have felt in all my days. As I turned, a dagger flashed before my eyes, and I felt the cold wind of it pass my neck, and the villain's wrist jar upon my shoulder. I shortened my sword, but he winced away from me, and an instant afterward was in full flight, bounding like a deer across the glade in the moonlight. But he was not to escape me thus. I knew that the murderous poniard had done its work. Young as I was, I had seen enough of war to know a mortal blow. I paused but for an instant to touch the cold hand. Sire! Sire! I cried in an agony. And then as no sound came back and nothing moved, save an ever-widening dark circle in the moonlight, I knew that all was indeed over. I sprang madly to my feet, threw off my great coat, and ran at the top of my speed after the remaining assassin.
How I blessed the wisdom which had caused me to come in shoes and gaiters, and the happy thought which had thrown off my coat. He could not get rid of his mantle, this wretch, or else he was too frightened to think of it. So it was that I gained upon him from the beginning. He must have been out of his wits, for he never tried to bury himself in the darker parts of the woods, but he flew on from glade to glade until he came to the Heathland, which leads up to the great Fontainebleau Quarry. There I had him in full sight, and knew that he could not escape me. He ran well, it is true. Ran as a coward runs when his life is the stake, but I ran as destiny runs when it gets behind a man's heels. Yard by yard I drew in upon him. He was rolling and staggering. I could hear the rasping and crackling of his breath. The great gulf of the quarry suddenly yawned in front of his path, and glancing at me over his shoulder, he gave a shriek of despair. The next instant he had vanished from my sight. Vanished utterly, you understand. I rushed to the spot and gazed down into the black abyss. Had he hurled himself over? I had almost made up my mind that he had done so.
When a gentle sound, rising and falling, came out of the darkness beneath me, it was his breathing once more, and it showed me where he must be. He was hiding in the tool-house.
At the edge of the quarry and beneath the summit there is a small platform upon which stands a wooden hut for the use of the labourers. It was into this, then, that he had darted. Perhaps he had thought, the fool, that in the darkness I would not venture to follow him. He little knew Etienne Gerard. With a spring I was on the platform, with another I was through the doorway, and then, hearing him in the corner, I hurled myself down upon the top of him. He fought like a wildcat, but he never had a chance with his shorter weapon. I think that I must have transfixed him with that first mad lunge, for though he struck and struck, his blows had no power in them, and presently his dagger tinkled down upon the floor. When I was sure that he was dead, I rose up and passed out into the moonlight. I climbed onto the heath again, and wandered across it as nearly out of my mind as a man could be.