“Oui, oui,” said a thin, miserable-looking Frenchman, “vous avez tiré la bouteille; il faut payer le vin.”
In all probability, had not the crowd separated us most effectually, these comments and counsels had been all uttered “after the fact;” for I dashed forward to strike my antagonist, and was only held back by main force, as Seth whispered in my ear, “Take it coolly, lad; it must be a fight now, and don't unsteady your hand by flying into a passion.”
Meanwhile the noise and confusion waxed louder and louder; and from the glances directed towards me there was very little doubt how strongly public opinion pronounced against me.
“No, no!” broke in Seth,—in reply to some speech whose purport I could only guess at, for I did not hear the words,—“that would be a downright shame. Let the lad have fair play. There's a pretty bit of ground outside the garden, for either sword or pistol-work, whichever you choose it to be. I 'll not stand anything else.”
Another very fiery discussion ensued upon this, the end of which was that I was led away by Seth and one of his comrades to my room, with the satisfactory assurance that at the very first dawn of day I was to meet the Mexican peasant in single combat.
“You have two good hours of sleep before you,” said Seth, as we entered my room; “and my advice is, don't lose a minute of them.”
It has been a mystery to me, up to the very hour I am writing in, how far my friend Seth Chiseller's conduct on this occasion accorded with good faith. Certainly, it would have been impossible for any one to have evinced a more chivalrous regard for my honor, and a more contemptuous disdain for my life, than the aforesaid Seth. He advanced full one hundred reasons for a deadly combat, the results of which, he confessed, were speculative matters of a most dreamy indifference. Now, although it has almost become an axiom in these affairs that there is nothing like a bold, decided friend, yet even these qualities may be carried to excess; and so I began to experience.
There was a vindictiveness in the way he expatiated upon the gross character of the insult I had received, the palpable openness of the outrage, that showed the liveliest susceptibility on the score of my reputation; and thus it came to pass, I suppose, from that spirit of divergence and contradiction so native to the human heart that the stronger Seth's argument ran in favor of a most bloody retribution, the more ingenious grew my casuistry on the side of mercy; till, grown weary of my sophistry, he finished the discussion by saying: “Take your own road, then; and if you prefer a stiletto under the ribs to the chance of a sabre-cut, it is your own affair, not mine.”
“How so? Why should I have to fear such?”
“You don't think that the villano will suffer a fellow to take his muchacha from him, and dance with her the entire evening before a whole company, without his revenge? No! no! they have different notions on that score, as you 'll soon learn.”