“Wh-what?” gasped Zenas, straightening up as if electrified. “Are you sure?”
“No question about it. Achmet is having a difficult time to hold him now.”
It was a fact that Mowbry Fitts was very much disturbed. He protested that there might be a mutual understanding through which the affair could be dropped. All the way to the cemetery he had hoped that the professor would not be there and would fail to appear. He now declared that Achmet was responsible for the whole wretched affair.
“It is a shame that two highly intelligent men, two eminently respectable citizens of a great and glorious country, should meet here, suh, in this wretched old cemetery, suh, and slaughter each other in cold blood,” he said.
Achmet shrugged his shoulders.
“I am quite surprised in you,” he declared. “I thought you a brave man. The other American is waiting and anxious. If you show the white feather now, you will be branded the rest of your life as a coward.”
At last the major seemed to brace up. He announced that he was ready for the worst.
By this time it had grown quite light outside, although there were still deep shadows in the cemetery.
Again Achmet turned to the professor and the boys.
“We are ready,” he said. “Where are the weapons?”