"It is not all that I wanted, but one must be satisfied with what one can get. Come, mark off the distances, my lads!"
"You see, Soulié and Fontan are doing it."
"Will you have the side where you now are?"
"As I am here, I may as well stay."
The gentlemen set to work to measure the distances, and I went on chatting with Bixio. Meantime, the shooting—boy loaded the pistols. The fifteen yards which we might walk over were marked by two sticks put across the pathway. They took M. Gaillardet his pistol and brought me mine. I took it in my right hand and held out my left for Bixio to feel my pulse. M. Gaillardet was ready at his post. I signed to him to wait till Bixio had made his observation.
"Tell him then not to take any notice of me, but to fire just the same," said Bixio.
Bixio's character runs entirely on those two lines.
My pulse beat sixty-eight to the minute.
"Now go along with you!" Bixio said to me, "and do not hurry yourself."
Then he went into the wood with the four witnesses. I went and took up my position. Soulié clapped his hands three times. At the third clap M. Gaillardet ran the distance which separated him from the limit and waited. I walked towards him deviating from the straight line a little so as not to give him the advantage of helping himself to take aim by the path. M. Gaillardet fired at my tenth yard. I did not even hear the whistle of the bullet. I turned towards our four friends. Soulié, as pale as death, was leaning against a tree. I bowed my head and waved my pistol at the witnesses to show them that nothing had happened. Then I wanted to take the few yards I still had left me; but my conscience glued my feet to the soil, telling me that I ought to fire from the spot where I had sustained fire. And, I lifted my pistol and looked for the famous white point which the cotton wool in his ears promised me. But, after M. Gaillardet had fired, he had stood back to receive my fire, and, as he protected his head with his pistol, his ear was hidden behind the weapon. I had therefore to find another spot; but I feared to be accused of having taken too long a time in aiming, not being able to give, as an excuse, that I had not found the spot I was looking for. So I fired at random. M. Gaillardet flung his head back. I thought at first that he was wounded, and I confess I then felt a vivid feeling of joy for a thing I should have regretted now with all my heart. Fortunately, he was not hit.