“Quite true. With me it will be different. I took care to give the affront, and you should have done the same. Seeing you got the worst of it, you ought to have followed up your first dash at him by something besides—a slap across the cheek, or a cut with your whip.”
“I’m sorry now I didn’t give him one or the other.”
“Well, you may find an opportunity yet. For my quarrel, I don’t care a toss whether it be settled with swords or pistols. We Creoles of Louisiana are accustomed to the use of either weapon. Thanks to old Gardalet of the Rue Royale, I’ve got the trick of both; and am equally ready to send a half-ounce of lead, or twelve inches of steel, through the body of this Britisher. By the way, what’s his name?”
The speaker pulls out the card given him by the English officer, and glancing at it, answers his own question: “Edward Crozier, H.M.S. Crusader.”
“Ha! Mr Ned Crozier!” he exclaims, speaking in plain English, the sight of the card seemingly giving a fresh fillip to his spleen; “you’ve had your triumph to-day. ’Twill be mine to-morrow. And, if my fortune don’t fail me, there’ll be an empty seat at the mess-table of the ship Crusader.”
“You really intend fighting him?”
“Now, Don Faustino Calderon, why do you ask that question?”
“Because I think all might be arranged without—”
“Without what? Speak out, man!”
“Why, without any spilling of blood.”