'That will do very nicely,' remarked O'Hara as he read this valentine from beyond the tomb; 'it is tenderly written—Lamartine with a flavour of De Musset. I should like to have a copy to send to the Manuscript Room of the British Museum. I suppose we're all here?'
'Where's your other witness?' asked Pale Face.
'In England we consider one enough; but if you insist upon it, we shall look upon my dog as discharging the duty.'
Pale Face grew white as a Pierrot. As for Blue Spectacles, the devil-may-care ease of the Irishman had put him into a blue funk.
All this time the principals stood apart, acting the rôle of unconcerned spectators. That is the correct deportment in duels. Eugène Siraudin puffed away at a cigarette; the O'Hoolohan, who was hot and ruddy after his exertions on the bicycle, stretched himself on his back on the turf by the trunk of a roadside poplar.
'Gentlemen, it's getting late,' cried O'Hara. 'We had better to business,' and he led the way, thrusting his bicycle by his side, through a gap in the field across to a postern in the wall of a villa garden, which was all he had described it—perfectly secure from the notice of passers-by. The doctor laid his fiddle-case on the grass, opened it, and displayed the shining instruments. The ground was stepped by the young Irishman. Traces were made with chalk at the extremities, twenty paces asunder, and at the further five paces, in front of each adversary's position, beyond which they were not to advance. O'Hara loaded the pistols and gave them to the Gascon's witnesses to examine. This they did in a very perfunctory way. The truth is, both were ignorant of the manner of loading a pistol, and, if they had the task to accomplish themselves, were as likely as not to put in the wad before the powder. The pistols were of the percussion and ramrod type, and the charges of powder and ball were supposed to be put in separately and driven home.
'Take your choice,' said O'Hara to Blue Spectacles.
Blue Spectacles took the first to his hand, adding that with such an honourable man there was no room for choice.
'Let your principal take what position he pleases,' said O'Hara, bowing; 'it's immaterial to us.'
They got into their places, each in that nearest to where he was standing at the moment.