‘To-night, then, with pistols. Over against the cemetery. Bring two charges, and we’ll fight till one of us falls. We’ll end this.’
‘A duel?’ cried Jack aghast.
‘Yes, a duel.’
‘Rubbish! You’re mad.’
‘I’m not mad, and you shall fight or I’ll brand you as a coward all over the camp. The French duel, and so can we. You shall meet me, or in the first engagement we’re in I’ll put a bullet in your back!’
With these words Napper leapt on Dainty, and, digging in his heels, trotted away.
Jack was left standing, lost in amazement. A duel! The thing was unheard of! Yet to be branded as a coward, and to know that Napper was always on the lookout to take his life should they ever be engaged with the enemy! Truly he was in an awkward dilemma.
That day his troop went out on a reconnaissance, but Napper was never absent from Jack’s thoughts for an instant. He thought and thought, and at last determined on a course. He would meet Napper, whose mind he fully believed was unhinged; but he would not fire. If he should fall his death would be at Napper’s door, and he left a higher Power to avenge him.
Full of this thought, he was riding back in the evening, tired out with a long day in the saddle. As they neared the camp a burying-party of his regiment was coming out. The sight was now, alas! too common to excite more than a passing interest. Cornet Leland halted the troop, and they ‘carried lances’ as the party went by.
‘Wonder who it is this time?’ said Pearson to Jack; but the latter did not answer, he was busily thinking of his mad meeting with Napper.