Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/222

 And O'Rourke promptly found himself engaged in defending himself, to the best of his slight ability, from a downward sweep of the younger officer's broadsword.

"Ye damned coward!" the Irishman cried, ablaze with rage.

His walking stick—a stout blackthorn relic of the old country—deflected the blade. The young officer spat a curse at him and struck carelessly again, displaying neither judgment nor skill. O'Rourke caught the blow a second time upon the stick, twisted the blackthorn through the other's guard and rapped him sharply across the knuckles.

"Ye infernal poltroon!" he said furiously. "To attack an unarmed man!"

The sword swept up through the air in a glittering arc, to fall clattering in a far corner. O'Rourke gave it slight heed. There was much to be accomplished ere that sword should strike the earth.

He leaped in upon the younger officer, whirling the blackthorn above his head; the man stepped back, raising his arms as though dazed. The stick descended with force enough to beat down this guard and crash dully upon his skull. He fell—like a log, in fact; and so lay still for a space.

And O'Rourke jumped back upon the instant, and just in time to knock a revolver from the hand of the elder man.

"Ye, too—a coward!" he raged. "Are there no men in this land?"

Simultaneously, in falling, the revolver was discharged. The shot rang loudly in the confines of the taproom walls, but the bullet buried itself harmlessly in the wainscoting. O'Rourke jumped for it and kicked the pistol through the open doorway.

"So much for that!" he cried, darting toward the corner