"That name will stick to Durescq for always," he said, with a slow smile. "It was splendid. Do you know you made me hold my breath while you were at him. Damn him, so he is a butcher!"
"Do you say Devinsky won't meet me?" I asked.
"No, not that he won't; but he raises the excuse that as Durescq's challenge was given first—as it was indeed—the order of the fight must follow the order of the challenges. But they arranged the challenges purposely in that order."
"I shan't hold to the point," I said, after a moment's consideration. "If they insist I shall give way and meet Durescq first. But this will only make it the more easy for us to insist on our plan of fighting. Don't give way on that. I am resolved that one of us shall fall: and chance shall settle which."
Essaieff tried to persuade me to insist on meeting Devinsky first; but I would not.
"No. He shan't carry back to St Petersburg the tale that we in Moscow are ready to bluster in words, and then daren't make them good in our acts."
"I hope he'll carry back no tale at all to St Petersburg," answered my friend, grimly: and then he left me.
I completed what few preparations I had to make in view of the very probably fatal issue of the fight: wrote a letter to Olga and enclosed one to Balestier as I had done before; and was just getting off to bed, when Essaieff came back to report.
My message had added to the already great excitement and there had been at first the most strenuous opposition to our plan of fighting. But he had forced his way, and the meetings—with the "butcher" first and, if I did not fall, with Devinsky afterwards—were fixed for eight o'clock. He promised to come for me half an hour before that time: and he urged me to get to bed and to have as much sleep as possible to steady my nerves.
They were steady enough already. I gloated over the affair; and I meant so to use it as to set the seal to my reputation as "that devil Alexis," whether I lived or died.