"No," again, very slowly. Arnold understood now.
"You swear?" Ichabod flashed a glance with the question.
A moment they both studied the sputtering candle.
"It'll be within fifteen minutes," randomed Ichabod.
That was all. Each had made his choice; a trivial matter of one second in the candle's life would decide which of these two men would die by his own hand.
For a minute there was no sound. They could not even hear their breathing. Then Arnold cleared his throat.
"You didn't say when the loser must pay his debt," he suggested.
Ichabod's voice in answer was a trifle husky.
"It won't be necessary." A vision of the future flashed, sinister, inevitable. "The man who loses won't care to face the necessity long."
Five minutes more passed. Down the street the blacksmith was hammering steadily. Beneath the window the group of farmers had separated; their departing footsteps tapping into distance and silence.
Minna went to the street door, calling loudly for Hans, Jr., who had strayed,--and both men started at the sound. The quick catch of their breathing was now plainly audible.
"You swear--" his voice rang unnaturally sharp, and he paused to moisten his throat,--"you swear before God you'll abide by this?"
"I swear before God," repeated Ichabod slowly.
A second, and the little man followed in echo.
Neither man remembered that one of this twain, who gave oath before the Deity, was an agnostic, the other an atheist!
A lonely south wind was rising, and above the tinkle of the blacksmith's hammer there sounded the tap of the light shade as it flapped in the wind against the window-pane. Low, drowsy, moaning,--typical breath of prairie,--it droned through the loosely built house, with sound louder, but not unlike the perpetual roar of a great sea-shell.
Ten minutes passed, and the men sat very still. Both their faces were white, and in the angle of the jaw of each the muscles were locked hard. Ichabod was leaning near the candle. It sputtered and a tiny globule of hot tallow struck his face. He winced and wiped the drop off quickly. Observing, Arnold smiled and opened his lips as if to make comment; then closed them suddenly, and the smile passed.
Two minutes more the watches ticked off; very, very slowly. Neither of the men had thought, beforehand, of this time of waiting. Big drops of sweat were forming on both their faces, and in the ears of each the blood sang madly. A haze, as from the dropping of a shade, seemed to have formed and hung over the room, and in unison sounds from without acquired a certain faintness, like that born of distance. Through it all the two men sat motionless, watching the candle and the time, as the fascinated bird watches its charmer; as the subject watches the hypnotist,--as if the passive exercise were the one imperative thing in the world.