“Mr. Lorrequer, I forgive you—here is my hand—bad luck to their French way of fighting, that’s all—it’s only good for killing one’s friend. I thought I was safe up there, come what might.”
“My dear O’Leary,” said I, in an agony, which prevented my minding the laughing faces around me, “surely you don’t mean to say that I have wounded you?”
“No, dear, not wounded, only killed me outright—through the brain it must be, from the torture I’m suffering.”
The shout with which this speech was received, sufficiently aroused me; while Trevanion, with a voice nearly choked with laughter, said—
“Why, Lorrequer, did you not see that your pistol, on being struck, threw your ball high up on the quarry; fortunately, however, about a foot and a half above Mr. O’Leary’s head, whose most serious wounds are his scratched hands and bruised bones from his tumble.”
This explanation, which was perfectly satisfactory to me, was by no means so consoling to poor O’Leary, who lay quite unconscious to all around, moaning in the most melancholy manner. Some of the blood, which continued to flow fast from my wound, having dropped upon his face, roused him a little—but only to increase his lamentation for his own destiny, which he believed was fast accomplishing.
“Through the skull—clean through the skull—and preserving my senses to the last! Mr. Lorrequer, stoop down—it is a dying man asks you—don’t refuse me a last request. There’s neither luck nor grace, honor nor glory in such a way of fighting—so just promise me you’ll shoot that grinning baboon there, when he’s going off the ground, since it’s the fashion to fire at a man with his back to you. Bring him down, and I’ll die easy.”
And with these words he closed his eyes, and straightened out his legs—stretched his arm at either side, and arranged himself as much corpse fashion as the circumstances of the ground would permit—while I now freely participated in the mirth of the others, which, loud and boisterous as it was, never reached the ears of O’Leary.
My arm had now become so painful, that I was obliged to ask Trevanion to assist me in getting off my coat. The surprise of the Frenchmen on learning that I was wounded was very considerable—O’Leary’s catastrophe having exclusively engaged all attention. My arm was now examined, when it was discovered that the ball had passed through from one side to the other, without apparently touching the bone; the bullet and the portion of my coat carried in by it both lay in my sleeve. The only serious consequence to be apprehended was the wound of the blood-vessel, which continued to pour forth blood unceasingly, and I was just surgeon enough to guess that an artery had been cut.
Trevanion bound his handkerchief tightly across the wound, and assisted me to the high road, which, so sudden was the loss of blood, I reached with difficulty. During all these proceedings, nothing could be possibly more kind and considerate than the conduct of our opponents. All the farouche and swaggering air which they had deemed the “rigueur” before, at once fled, and in its place we found the most gentlemanlike attention and true politeness.