It lasted only a few seconds.

They applauded and asked him what it meant and was he “weaving a spell.” He said no, nothing like that. His eyes were glazed. “I’ve had a little too much to drink,” he said. “I’ll go now. Good-night, all of you.”

They objected. Some of them hung on to him but they did it halfheartedly. He brushed them off. “Sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have taken that drink. I’m no good with drinking.” He pulled some notes out of his pocket and shoved them across the bar. “My round,” he said. “Good-night, all.”

He walked quickly to the swing doors, lost his balance, and regained it.

“You all right?” Angus asked.

“No,” he answered. “Far from it.”

He walked into the doors. They swung out and he went with them. They saw him pull up, look stiffly to right and left, raise his umbrella in a magnificent gesture, get into the taxi that responded, and disappear.

“He’s all right,” said one of the lairds. “He’s got a room round here.”

“Nice chap.”

“Very nice.”

“I’ve heard, I don’t know who told me, mark you,” said Angus, “that drink has a funny effect on Maori people. Goes straight to their heads and they revert to their savage condition.”

“Rangi hasn’t,” said Ross. “He’s gone grand.”

“He did when he performed that dance or whatever it was,” said the actor who played Menteith.

“You know what I think?” said Ross. “I think he was upset when you quoted.”

“It’s all a load of old bullshit, anyway,” said a profound voice in the background.

This provoked a confused expostulation that came to its climax when the Menteith roared out: “Thass all very fine but I bet you wouldn’t call the play by its right name. Would you do that?”

Silence.

“There you are!”

“Only because it’d upset the rest of you.”

“Yah!” they all said.

The Ross, an older man who was sober, said: “I think it’s silly to talk about it. We feel as we do in different ways. Why not just accept that and stop nattering?”

“Somebody ought to write a book about it,” said Wendy.

“There is a chapter about it in a book called Supernatural on Stage, by Richard Huggett.”

They finished their drinks. The party had gone flat.

“Call it a day, chaps?” asked Ross.

“That’s about the strength of it,” Menteith agreed.

The nameless and lineless thanes noisily concurred and gradually they drifted out.

Ross said to the Angus, “Come on, old boy, I’ll see you home.”

“I’m afraid I’ve overstepped the mark. Sorry. We were carousing till the second cock. Oh, dear, there I go again.”

“Come on, old boy.”

“All right.” He made a shaky attempt to cross himself. “I’m okay,” he said.

“Of course you are.”

“Right you are, then. Good-night, Porter,” he said to the barman.

“Good-night, sir.”

They went out.

“Actors,” said one of the guests.

“That’s right, sir,” the barman agreed, collecting their glasses.

“What was that they were saying about some superstition? I couldn’t make head or tail of it.”

“They make out it’s unlucky to quote from this play. They don’t use the title either.”

“Silly sods,” remarked another.

“They take it for gospel.”

“Probably some publicity stunt by the author.”

The barman grunted.

“What is the name of the play, then?”

“Macbeth.”

Rehearsals for the duel had begun and were persisted in remorselessly. At 9:30 every morning Dougal Macdougal and Simon Morten, armed with weighted wooden claymores, slashed and banged away at each other in a slow dance superintended by a merciless Gaston.

The whole affair, step by step, blow by blow, had been planned down to the last inch. Both men suffered agonies from the strain on muscles unaccustomed to such exercise. They sweated profusely. Gaston had found an ancient 45-rpm record of the Anvil Chorus, which when played at a lower speed ground out a lugubrious, laborious, nightmarelike accompaniment, made more hateful by Gaston humming, also out of tune.

The relationship among the three men was, from the first, uneasy. Dougal tended to be facetious. “What ho, varlet. Have at thee, miscreant,” he would cry.

Morten — Macduff — did not respond to these sallies. He was ominously polite and glum to a degree. When Dougal swung at him, lost his balance, and ran, as it were, after his own weapon, wild-eyed, an expression of great concern upon his face, Morten allowed himself a faint sneer. When Dougal finally tripped and fell in a sitting position with a sickening thud, the sneer deepened.

“The balance!” Gaston screamed. “How many times must I insist? If you lose the balance of your weapon you lose your own balance and end up looking foolish. As now.”

Dougal rose. With some difficulty and using his claymore as a prop.

“No!” chided Gaston. “It is to be handled with respect, not dug into the floor and climbed up.”

“This is merely a dummy. Why should I respect it?”

“It weighs exactly the same as the claidheamh-mor.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Again! We begin at the beginning. Again! Up! Weakling!”

“I’m not accustomed,” said Dougal magnificently, “to being treated in this manner.”

“No? Forgive me, Sir Dougal. And, let me tell you, Sir Dougal, that I, Gaston Sears, am not accustomed to conducting myself like a mincing dancing master, Sir Dougal. It is only because this fight is to be performed before audiences of discrimination, with weapons that are the precise replicas of the original claidheamh-mor, that I have consented to teach you.”

“If you ask me, we’d get on a lot better if we faked the whole show. The whole bloody show. Oh, all right, all right,” Dougal amended, answering the really alarming expression that contorted Gaston’s face. “I give in. Let’s get on with it. Come on.”

“Come on,” echoed Morten. “Thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out!”

Whack. Bang. Down came his claymore, caught on Macbeth’s shield. “Te-tum. Te-tum-te — disengage,” shouted Gaston. “Macbeth sweeps across. Macduff leaps over the blade. Te-tum-tum. That is better. That is an improvement. You have achieved the rhythm. Now we shall take it a little faster.”

“Faster! My God, you’re killing us.”

“You handle your weapon like a peasant. Look. I shall show you. Here, give it to me.”

Dougal, using both hands, threw the claymore at him. With great dexterity, Gaston caught it by the hilt, twirled it, and held it before him, pointed at Dougal.

“Hah!” he shouted. “Hah and hah again.” He lunged, changed his grip, and swept the weapon up — and down.

Dougal leaped to one side. “Christ Almighty!” he cried. “What are you doing?”

Grimacing abominably, Gaston brought the heavy claymore up in a conventional salute.

“Handling my weapon, Sir Dougal. And you will do so before I have finished with you.”

Dougal whispered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’ve got the strength of the devil, Gaston.”

“No. It is a matter of balance and rhythm more than strength. Come, take the first exchange a tempo. Yes, a tempo. Come.”

He offered the claymore ceremoniously to Dougal, who took it and heaved it up into the salute.

“Good! We progress. One moment.”

He went to the phonograph and altered the timing. “Listen,” he said and switched it on. Out came the Anvil Chorus, remorselessly truthful as if rejoicing in its own restoration. Gaston switched it off. “That is our timing.” He turned to Simon Morten. “Ready, Mr. Morten?”

“Quite ready.”

“The cue, if you please.”

“Thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out.”

And the fight was a fight. There was rhythm and there was timing. For a minute and a quarter all went well and at the end the two men, pouring sweat, leaning on their weapons, breathless, waited for his comment.