Let me hasten over what follows.
Apologies were neither asked nor offered. The affair was beyond such amenities in the deadly game we were about to play. Twelve paces were measured; we tossed up for the first fire, and it fell to—Berkeley! Then I saw a smile of savage hope light up his eyes and curl his lip, as he took his ground and carefully cocked his pistol, just feeling the percussion-cap for a second with the fore-finger of his left hand.
Steadily I looked at him. I could see how he restrained his breathing, lest the aim might waver; how a white glare came into his eye, as it glanced along the barrel of the pistol, which he levelled full at my head, in the pale moonlight.
"Gardez la bombe!" shouted Colonel Giomar, as he rolled away over the turf like a butter-firkin. It was a moment of thrilling suspense, and, bewildered by the interruption, Berkeley permitted his pistol to explode, the ball going Heaven knows where! There was a whistling in the air overhead, with a rushing sound and then a heavy thud, as there lighted, almost at Berkeley's feet, a five-inch shell, shot from the South Fort by the Russians, who must have seen our group in the moonlight; and there it lay on the turf, half-imbedded by its own weight, with its red fuse hissing and burning furiously.
For a moment I saw its upward glare, as it shone on the pale face of the terrified man, who was too much paralyzed by emotion to move; but, just as I flung myself flat on the earth to escape the explosion, there was a blaze of yellow light, a crash as of thunder, and I felt a kind of hot wind sweep over me. The shell had burst, and Berkeley lay a heap of mutilated blood and bones beside it!
We rushed towards him. Both legs were broken in many places, a large fragment was buried deep in his chest, and the man was dead!
"Poor fellow!" said I, after our first exclamations of astonishment and commiseration had subsided.
Berkeley had long and systematically wronged me deeply; and now the angry lust for vengeance passed away, and I felt ashamed of the bitterness of the emotions which had inspired me but a few moments before. I forgave him all now, and almost felt sorry for the sudden fate that had, perhaps, saved me—I say sorry, but I could feel no more.
That fate so unlooked for and mysterious freed me from all further trouble or responsibility. I could pardon him for all he had ever done to me, and to his dead victim too—poor Agnes Auriol.
"C'est la fortune de guerre, camarades," said Colonel Giomar, shrugging his shoulders.