‘Gentlemen, fall back, fall back; I am about to give the word. Herr Eisendecker, are your ready?’
A nod was the reply.
‘Now!’ cried he, in a loud voice; and scarcely was the word uttered when the discharge of the pistol was heard. So rapid, indeed, was the motion, that we never saw him lift his arm; nor could any one say what direction the ball had taken.
‘I knew it, I knew it,’ muttered Eisendecker’s friend, in tones of agony. ‘All is over with him now.’
Before a minute elapsed, the word to fall back was again given, and I now beheld Von Mühry standing with his pistol in hand, while a smile of cool but determined malice sat on his features.
While the second repeated the same words over to him, I turned to look at Eisendecker, but he evinced no apparent consciousness of what was going on about him; his eyes, as before, were bent on vacancy; his pale face, unmoved, showed no signs of passion. In an instant the fearful ‘Now’ rang out, and Mühry slowly raised his arm, and, levelling his pistol steadily, stood with his eye bent on his victim. While the deep voice of the second slowly repeated one—two—three—four—never was anything like the terrible suspense of that moment. It seemed as if the very seconds of human life were measuring out one by one. As the word ‘ten’ dropped from his lips, I saw Mühry’s hand shake. In his revengeful desire to kill his man, he had waited too long, and now he was growing nervous; he let fall his arm to his side, and waited for a few seconds, then raising it again, he took a steady aim, and at the word ‘nineteen’ fired.
A slight movement of Eisendecker’s head at this instant brought his face full front; and the bullet, which would have transfixed his head, now merely passed along his cheek, tearing a rude flesh-wound as it went.
A half-cry broke from Mühry: I heard not the word; but the accent I shall never cease to remember. It was now Eisendecker’s time; and as the blood streamed down his cheek, and fell in great drops upon his neck and shoulders, I saw his face assume the expression it used to wear in former days. A terrible smile lit up his dark features, and a gleam of passionate vengeance made his eye glow like that of a maniac.
‘I am ready—give the word,’ cried he, in frantic impatience.
But Mühry’s second, fearful of giving way to such a moment of passion, hesitated; when Eisendecker again called out, ‘The word, sir, the word!’ and the bystanders, indignant at the appearance of unfairness, repeated the cry.