“Perhaps our valiant friend is going to cry off,” sneered one of them.
“Cry off? The divil a bit!” was the reply. “Claverton’s all there, I can tell ye. He’ll turn up in a minute.”
“Thank you, McShane,” struck in a voice, in the same low, cautious tone, as the watcher glided from his concealment.
“Och! there ye are! Now, we’d better get to business at once. First of all, we’d better lave the horses here close at hand in case we should want them.”
This was done, the three steeds being fastened securely to a small mimosa tree.
“I say, you fellows,” said the kindly Irish doctor, “is it determined to go through with it you are? Bedad, and hadn’t you better shake hands, and go straight home and have a brew o’ punch together? Faith, an’ it’s better than riddlin’ each other with lead.”
“My dear McShane, what on earth will you propose next?” said Claverton, while Truscott’s face, glowering with rage in the moonlight, was answer enough on his part.
“Ah, well I see it’s blood-lettin’ ye mane. Now ye’ll just both o’ ye sign this bit o’ paper. It’s meself that would rather be out of it. A duel with only one second! Why, it’s like an election with only one candidate—he gets kicked by both sides and thanked by neither, bedad.”
The “bit of paper” in question set forth that Dennis McShane acted in the matter at the joint request of both parties, and it was a precaution which he had deemed advisable to take in case the transaction should terminate disastrously, or at any future time be brought to light—or both. Without a word each affixed his signature, and then Dennis proceeded to pace out the ground. The duel was to be fought with six-shooters, the first three shots at twenty-five, and the rest at twenty paces.
“Now ye’d better look at each other’s pistols, as there’s no one to do it for ye,” he said.