"Listen, gentlemen. You will fire when I give the word three. If either pulls the trigger before that word is pronounced, it will be murder."
He looked at the Frenchman, and then counted—
"One, two, three!"
But before the word "three" had fully passed his lips, the Frenchman's pistol was discharged.
Young Jack, however, prepared for such a trick, had just a moment before turned full towards him and stared him in the face.
This manœuvre was entirely successful.
The Frenchman's unfair, murderous aim was disconcerted, and his bullet whistled harmlessly past our hero's ear.
Jack then deliberately levelled his pistol at the Frenchman, who trembled violently, and showed every symptom of the most abject terror.
"I thought so," exclaimed Jack. "A vile coward as well as a murderer."
And he discharged his own pistol in the air.