What is the weapon?"
"This!" and I displayed that silver-mounted thing.
He cast but one glance at it, then swooned ponderously
to the floor.
When he came to, he said mournfully:
"The unnatural calm to which I have subjected myself
has told upon my nerves. But away with weakness!
I will confront my fate like a man and a Frenchman."
He rose to his feet, and assumed an attitude which
for sublimity has never been approached by man,
and has seldom been surpassed by statues. Then he said,
in his deep bass tones:
"Behold, I am calm, I am ready; reveal to me the distance."
"Thirty-five yards." ...
I could not lift him up, of course; but I rolled him over,
and poured water down his back. He presently came to,
and said:
"Thirty-five yards - without a rest? But why ask? Since
murder was that man's intention, why should he palter
with small details? But mark you one thing: in my fall
the world shall see how the chivalry of France meets death."
After a long silence he asked:
"Was nothing said about that man's family standing
up with him, as an offset to my bulk? But no matter;
I would not stoop to make such a suggestion; if he is
not noble enough to suggest it himself, he is welcome
to this advantage, which no honorable man would take."
He now sank into a sort of stupor of reflection,
which lasted some minutes; after which he broke silence with:
"The hour - what is the hour fixed for the collision?"
"Dawn, tomorrow."
He seemed greatly surprised, and immediately said:
"Insanity! I never heard of such a thing. Nobody is
abroad at such an hour."
"That is the reason I named it. Do you mean to say you
want an audience?"
"It is no time to bandy words. I am astonished that M. Fourtou
should ever have agreed to so strange an innovation.
Go at once and require a later hour."
I ran downstairs, threw open the front door, and almost
plunged into the arms of M. Fourtou's second. He said:
"I have the honor to say that my principal strenuously
objects to the hour chosen, and begs you will consent
to change it to half past nine."
"Any courtesy, sir, which it is in our power to extend
is at the service of your excellent principal. We agree
to the proposed change of time."
"I beg you to accept the thanks of my client." Then he
turned to a person behind him, and said, "You hear, M. Noir,
the hour is altered to half past nine." Whereupon
M. Noir bowed, expressed his thanks, and went away.
My accomplice continued:
"If agreeable to you, your chief surgeons and ours shall
proceed to the field in the same carriage as is customary."
"It is entirely agreeable to me, and I am obliged
to you for mentioning the surgeons, for I am afraid
I should not have thought of them.
