Three-sided it became after the first exchanges. For Pearse, the most skilled in fence, applied himself to Venner as his most dangerous foe, and with the cunning of the serpent Craik Tomlin saw and seized his own opportunity. Let Pearse and Venner kill each other, or let that end be accomplished with his outside help, and there was the solution that Dolores had demanded them to work out; one of them left, to be master of the wealth of Croesus; to be the mate of a magnificent creature, who could be goddess or she-devil at will.
With a satanic chuckle Tomlin drew back, leaving his friends to fight themselves weary, his own rapier ever presented toward them, urging them on with lashing tongue. And Venner flashed a look at him as Cæsar did at Brutus, and suffered for his lapse in vigilance. For with the pounce of a leopard Pearse was upon him, and his rapier grated over Venner's guard and darted straight at his throat. But Venner's time had not come yet; Tomlin flashed his own weapon in and parried the stroke for him, backing away again with a murderous snarl.
"Not yet, my friends!" he cried. "You're too strong yet, Pearse. At him, Venner; let me see you draw blood as he has, that I may see my own way clearer."
From the other end of the great chamber Dolores watched the conflict from the concealment of the velvet hangings over the door; and her hands were clasped in ecstasy, her lips parted to the swift breathing that agitated her breast; in her blazing eyes her wicked soul lurked, sending out its evil aura to envelop the combatants and instil deeper hatred into them.
The fight raged back and forth around the powder store; once a sudden onslaught by Pearse forced Venner back to the great chair; Tomlin's swift rush to keep close brought all three into a tumbled crash at the dais, and the chair was overturned in a heap of flying draperies that entangled their feet. And while Pearse and Venner struggled vainly to maintain their footing, Tomlin began to accomplish his own dire ends. Crouching, with his dark face full of evil passions, he drove his point first at one, then at the other, stabbing through the involved silk and skins.
In his furious haste to complete his murderous work, he sprang forward carelessly, his foot became entangled, and he pitched face downward upon his victims. Now Pearse seized the opening; but when he arose, stumblingly, there was a different expression on his face, a horror-stricken realization of Tomlin's treachery. Venner lay, still unable to disentangle himself, but slightly hurt, and he, too, regarded Tomlin with a look of sorrow and reawakening sanity.