Oïdas acted as second to Stavros. When the hour was fixed, he found his principal plunged in the depths of despair. The lawyer and editor had a very good notion of settling a quarrel with the pen and the tongue, but when it came to a question of loaded pistols, capacity oozed out through his finger-tips, and the sweat of mortal terror drenched his brow.
“If the thing should not go off properly?” he suggested.
“Just hold it straight, and sight your target—like this,” Oïdas explained, lifting the weapon.
“Oh, oh! take care, Oïdas. Mind it doesn’t go off,” Stavros supplicated, making a rush for the door.
“You fool! It is not even loaded.”
Stavros sat up all night to write miserable letters to his mother and sisters at Constantinople, and heaped curses on the head of his frantic enemy. The doctor fared hardly better. Deprived of the stimulating society of his military friend, his spirits sank, his mind became unhinged, and his aspect took a funereal hue. He sent an incoherent missive to Pericles, and lay on his bed weeping and moaning. When Miltiades and Agiropoulos aroused him next morning, his eyelids were appalling to behold, and his effort at cheerfulness most ghastly.
“A soldier never anticipates evil; is that not so, my brave Captain?” laughed Agiropoulos.
“Could not this matter be more pacifically arranged?” Selaka implored, vainly endeavoring to conceal his fear in the mask of humanity. “It is a sinful thing, my friends, to waste the blood of one’s fellow in a private quarrel.”
“If it comes to that,” said the ready Agiropoulos, “there is little to choose between public and private quarrels. Indeed, more often than not, wars have sprung from personal differences.”
“But the law of every civilised country forbids duelling. Stavros and I are both lawgivers—that is, we represent the Constitution, and are bound to uphold it. It would be monstrous for two members of Parliament to break the law,” pleaded Selaka, covering himself with a last poor remnant of virtue.