“Well?” he said.
“Now to my sins I must add murder, or else myself be killed,” said Tarzan. “I am progressing rapidly in the ways of my civilized brothers.”
“What weapons shall you select?” asked D’Arnot. “De Coude is accredited with being a master with the sword, and a splendid shot.”
“I might then choose poisoned arrows at twenty paces, or spears at the same distance,” laughed Tarzan. “Make it pistols, Paul.”
“He will kill you, Jean.”
“I have no doubt of it,” replied Tarzan. “I must die some day.”
“We had better make it swords,” said D’Arnot. “He will be satisfied with wounding you, and there is less danger of a mortal wound.”
“Pistols,” said Tarzan, with finality.
D’Arnot tried to argue him out of it, but without avail, so pistols it was.
D’Arnot returned from his conference with Monsieur Flaubert shortly after four.