Carette of Sark. John Oxenham
of the rights and wrongs of the matter; but with the bitter intensity born of personal wrongs and the desire for personal vengeance. To Hamon, Martel represented the grievous shadow on Rachel Carré's life. To Martel, Hamon represented Sercq and all the contumely that had been heaped upon him there.
Their faces were set like rocks. Their teeth were clenched. They breathed hard and quick—through their noses at first, but presently, and of necessity, in short sharp gasps from the chest.
It was a great fight, with none to see it but the placid moon, and so strong was her light that there seemed to be four men fighting, two above and two below. And at times they all merged into a writhing confusion of fierce pantings and snortings as of wild beasts, but for the most part they fought in grim silence, broken only by the whistle of the wind through their swollen lips, the light thud of their feet on the trampled ground, and the grisly sound of fist on flesh. And they fought for love of Rachel Carré, which the one had not been able to win and the other had not been able to keep.
Martel was the bigger man, but Hamon's legs and arms had springs of hate in them which more than counterbalanced. He was a temperate man too, and in fine condition. He played his man with discretion, let him exhaust himself to his heart's content, took with equanimity such blows as he could not ward or avoid, and kept the temper of his hatred free from extravagance till his time came.
Martel lost patience and wind. Unless he could end the matter quickly his chance would be gone. He did his best to close and finish it, but his opponent knew better, and avoided him warily. They had both received punishment. Hamon took it for Rachel's sake, Martel for his sins. His brain was becoming confused with Hamon's quick turns and shrewd blows, and he could not see as clearly as at first. At times it seemed to him that there were two men fighting him. He must end it while he had the strength, and he bent to the task with desperate fury. Then, as he was rushing on his foe like a bull, with all his hatred boiling in his head, all went suddenly dark, and he was lying unconscious with his face on the trodden grass, and George Hamon stood over him, with his fists still clenched, all battered and bleeding, and breathing like a spent horse, but happier than he had been for many a day.
Martel lay so still that a fear began to grow in Hamon that he was dead. He had caught him deftly on the temple as he came on. He had heard of men being killed by a blow like that. He knelt and turned the other gingerly over, and felt his heart beating. And then the black eyes opened on him and the whites of them gleamed viciously in the moonlight, and Hamon stood up, and, after a moment's consideration, strode away and kicked about in the bracken till he found the other's knife. Then he picked up his jacket, and went back to the cottage with the knife in one hand and his jacket in the other, and went inside and bolted the door, which was not a custom in Sercq.
CHAPTER IV
HOW MARTEL RAISED THE CLAMEUR BUT FOUND NO RELIEF
George Hamon slept heavily that night while Nature repaired damages. In the morning he had his head in a bucket of water from the well, when he heard footsteps coming up the steep way from the shore, and as he shook the drops out of his swollen eyes he saw that it was Philip Carré come in from his fishing.
"Hello, George—!" and Carré stopped and stared at his face, and knew at once that what he had feared had come to pass.—"He's back then?"
"It feels like it."
"Where did you meet?"
"He came in here in the middle of the night. We fought on Longue Pointe."
"Where is he now?"
"I left him in the grass with his wits out."
"She'll have no peace till he's dead and buried," said Carré gloomily.
Then they heard heavy footsteps in the narrow way between the hedges, and both turned quickly with the same thought in their minds. But it was only Philip Tanquerel coming down to see to his lobster pots, and at sight of Hamon's face he grinned knowingly and drawled, "Bin falling out o' bed, George?"
"Yes. Fell on top of the Frenchman."
"Fell heavy, seems to me. He's back then? I doubted he'd come if he wanted to."
Then more steps between the hedges, and Martel himself turned the corner and came straight for the cottage.
He made as though he would go in without speaking to the others, but George Hamon planted himself in the doorway with a curt, "No, you don't!"
"You refuse to let me into my own house?"
"Yes, I do."
"By what right?"
"By this!" said Hamon, raising his fist. "If you want any more of it you've only to say so. You're outcast. You've no rights here. Get away!"
"I claim my rights," said Martel through his teeth, and fell suddenly to his knees, and cried, "Haro! Haro! Haro! à l'aide mon prince! On me fait tort."
The three men looked doubtfully at one another for a moment, for this old final appeal to a higher tribunal, in the name of Rollo, the first old Norseman Duke, dead though he was this nine hundred years, was still the law of the Islands and not to be infringed with impunity.
All the same, when the other sprang up and would have passed into the cottage, Hamon declined to move, and when Martel persisted, he struck at him with his fist, and it looked as though the fight were to be renewed.
"He makes Clameur, George," said Philip Tanquerel remonstratively.
"He may make fifty Clameurs for me. Let him go to the Sénéchal and the Greffier and lay the matter before them. He's not coming in here as long as I've got a fist to lift against him."
"You refuse?" said Martel blackly.
"You had better go to the Greffier," said Philip Carré. "The Court will have to decide it."
"It is my house."
"I'm in charge of it, and I won't give it up till the Sénéchal tells me to. So there!" said Hamon.
Martel turned on his heel and walked away, and the three stood looking after him.
"I'm not sure—" began Tanquerel, in his slow drawling way.
"You're only a witness, anyway, Philip," said Hamon. "I'm the oppressor, and if he comes again I'll give him some more of what he had last night. He may Haro till he's hoarse, for me. Till the Sénéchal bids me go, I stop here;" and Tanquerel shrugged his shoulders and went off down the slope to his pots.
"More trouble," said Carré gloomily.
"We'll meet it—with our fists," said Hamon cheerfully. "M. le Sénéchal is not going to be browbeaten by a man he's flung out of the Island."
And so it turned out. The cutter had brought M. Le Masurier a letter from the authorities in Guernsey which pleased him not at all. It informed him that Martel, having married into Sercq and settled on Sercq, belonged to Sercq, and they would have none of him, and were accordingly sending him home again.
When Martel appeared to lodge his complaint, and claim the old Island right to cessation of oppression and trial of his cause, M. le Sénéchal was prepared for him. It was not the man's fault that he was back on their hands, and he said nothing about that. As to his complaint, however, he drew a rigid line between the past and the future. In a word, he declined to interfere in the matter of the cottage until the case should be tried and the Court should give its judgment.
"Hamon must not, of course, interfere with you any further. But neither must you interfere with him," said the wise man. "If you should do so he retains the right that every man has of defending himself, and