It was quite thirty minutes after the appointed time when the Duke of Bora made his appearance attended by his second, Baron Ostrova. They brought no surgeon with them, for Ostrova, in arrogant vein, had declared that his principal had never yet required one; and Trevisa, not to be outdone in bravado, had made the same avowal respecting Paul.
While the duke remained at a little distance his second advanced, gracefully raising his hat to Trevisa.
"Accept our sincere regret. Our vehicle broke down on the way." Then, adopting a somewhat submissive air, and addressing Paul and Trevisa in common, he said,—
"Can we not terminate this little matter amicably? His grace is willing to apologize for his hasty action of this morning."
To do the duke justice, it was not Paul's sword that he feared, but loss of the princess. During the course of the day he had begun to realize the force of Radzivil's words,—that if the affair should come to the knowledge of the princess it might seriously affect the projected marriage.
He would, therefore, swallow his pride, and for the first time in his career as duellist cry off from the combat by making an apology.
"All's well that ends well!" murmured the delighted Trevisa. "You'll accept the amende honorable, Paul?"
But Paul seemed bent on chastising the duke.
"It is pleasant to learn," he said, speaking sufficiently loud for Bora to hear, "that his grace realizes that he has acted like a ruffian. 'Liar' and 'coward' were the epithets he applied to me; his action, a cane-stroke across my cheek. And now does he deem that simply to express regret will be a sufficient satisfaction for an affront offered to the uniform of the Twenty-fourth? Well, I will accept the apology on this condition," continued Paul, breaking a slender sapling from a tree overhead and leisurely stripping off the foliage, "that the duke's cheek shall receive from this wand a stroke similar to that bestowed upon mine. It will be a convincing token of his repentance."