THE DOUBLE DUEL.
Antony Noell, the judge, had three children, and report lied not when it said that he was tenderly attached to them. A harsh and unfeeling man in his official capacity, and in the ordinary affairs of life, all the softer part of his nature seemed to have resolved itself into paternal affection. His two sons were students at the university of Toulouse; his youngest child, a blooming maiden of twelve, still brightened his home and made his heart joyful, although she soon was to leave him to finish her education in a convent. The two students were gay handsome lads, but somewhat dissipated; fonder of the bottle and the billiard-room than of grave lectures and dry studies. They were in small favour with their pedagogues, but in high repute with their fellow collegians; whilst peaceable citizens and demure young ladies regarded them with mingled aversion, interest, and curiosity, on account of certain mad pranks, by which, during their first half-year's residence, they had gained a certain notoriety in the quiet city of Toulouse.
It happened one night, as the brothers came both flushed with play and wine from their accustomed coffeehouse on the Place du Capitole, that Vincent, the elder of the two, stumbled over the feet of a man who sat upon one of the benches placed outside the establishment. The passage through the benches and tables was narrow; and the stranger, having thrust his legs nearly across it, had little reason to complain of the trifling offence offered him. Nevertheless he jumped to his feet and fiercely taxed young Noell with an intentional insult. Noell, full of good humour and indifferent wine, and taking his interlocutor for a fellow student, made a jesting reply, and seizing one of the stranger's arms, whilst his brother Martial grasped the other, dragged him into the lamp-light to see who he was. But the face they beheld was unknown to them; and scarcely had they obtained a glimpse at it when its owner shook them off, applying to them at the same time a most injurious epithet. The students would have struck him, but he made a pace backwards, and, seizing a heavy chair which he whirled over his head as though it had been a feather, he swore he would dash out the brains of the first who laid a finger on him.
"I do not fight like a water-carrier," he said, "with fists and feet; but if you are as ready with your swords as you are with your insolence, you shall not long await satisfaction."
And offering a card, which was at once accepted, he received two in return. The disputants then separated; and as soon as the Noells turned out of the square, they paused beneath a lamp to examine the card they had received. Inscribed upon it was the name of Dominique Lafon.
It was too late, when this quarrel occurred, for further steps to be taken that night; but early on the following morning Dominique's second, a young lawyer whom he had known during his studies at Paris, had an interview with the friends appointed by the Noells to act on their behalf. The latter anticipated a duel with swords, and were surprised to find that Dominique, entitled, as the insulted party, to fix the weapon, selected the more dangerous and less usual one of pistols. They could not object, however, and the meeting was fixed for the next day; the arrangement being that both brothers should come upon the ground, and that, if Dominique was unhurt in the first encounter, the second duel should immediately succeed it.
In a secluded field, to the right of the pleasant road from Toulouse to Albi, and at no great distance from the tumulus on whose summit a stone pillar commemorates Soult's gallant resistance to Wellington's conquering forces, the combatants met at the appointed hour, and saluted each other with cold courtesy. Dominique was pale, but his hand and eye were steady, and his pulse beat calmly. The two Noells were cheerful and indifferent, and bore themselves like men to whom encounters of this kind were no novelty. The elder brother took the first turn. The seconds asked once more if the affair could not be peaceably arranged; but, receiving no answer, they made the final arrangements. Two peeled willow rods were laid upon the ground, six yards apart. At ten yards from either of these the duellists were placed, making the entire distance between them six and twenty yards; and it was at their option, when the seconds gave the word, either to advance to the barrier before firing, or to fire at once, or from any intervening point.
The word was given, and the antagonists stepped out. Vincent Noell took but two paces, halted and fired. He had missed. Dominique continued steadily to advance. When he had taken five paces, the seconds looked at each other, and then at him, as if expecting him to stop. He took no notice, and moved on. It was a minute of breathless suspense. In the dead silence, his firm tread upon the grass was distinctly audible. He paused only when his foot touched the willow wand. Then he slowly raised his arm, and fired.
The whirling smoke prevented him for an instant from discerning the effect of his shot, but the hasty advance of the seconds and of two surgeons who had accompanied them to the field, left him little doubt that it had told. It had indeed done so, and with fatal effect. The unhappy Vincent was bathed in his blood. The surgeons hastened to apply a first dressing, but their countenances gave little hope of a favourable result.
Pale and horror-stricken, not with personal fear, but with grief at his brother's fate, Martial Noell whispered his second, who proposed postponing the second duel till another day. Dominique, who, whilst all his companions had been busy with the wounded man, had remained leaning against a tree, his discharged pistol in his hand, collected and unsympathising, stepped forward on hearing this proposition.
"Another day?" said he with a cruel sneer. "Before another day arrives, I shall doubtless be in prison for this morning's work. But no matter; if the gentleman is less ready to fight than he was to insult me, let him leave the field."
The scornful tone and insinuation brought a flush of shame and anger to the brow of the younger Noell. He detested himself for the momentary weakness he had shown, and a fierce flame of revenge kindled in his heart.
"Murderer!" he exclaimed, "my brother's blood calls aloud for vengeance. May Providence make me its instrument!"
Dominique replied not. Under the same conditions as before, the two young men took their stations. But the chances were not equal. Dominique retained all his coolness; his opponent's whole frame quivered with passionate emotion. This time, neither was in haste to fire. Advancing slowly, their eyes fixed on each other, they reached at the same moment the limits of their walk. Then their pistols were gradually raised, and, as if by word of command, simultaneously discharged. This time both balls took effect. The one that struck Dominique went through his arm, without breaking the bone, and lodged in his back, inflicting a severe but not a dangerous wound. But Martial Noell was shot through the head.
The news of this bloody business soon got wind, and the very same day it was the talk of all Toulouse. Martial Noell had died upon the spot; his brother expired within forty-eight hours. The seconds got out of the way, till they should see how the thing was likely to go. Dominique's wound prevented his following their example, if he were so disposed; and when it no longer impeded his movements, he was already in the hands of justice. Frantic with grief on learning the fate of his beloved sons, Anthony Noell hurried to Toulouse, and vigorously pushed a prosecution. He hoped for a very severe sentence, and was bitterly disappointed when Dominique escaped, in consideration of his wounds and of his having been the insulted party, with the lenient doom of five years' imprisonment.