“Only for its drawbacks.”
“You mean our affair with those fellows? Why, that was the best part of it—so far as fun. To see the one in the sky-blue wrap, after I’d dirked his horse, go off like a ship in a gale, with nobody at the helm! By Jove! it was equal to old Billy Button in the circus. And then the other, you bundled over in the road, as he got up looking like a dog just out of a dust-bin! Oh! ’twas delicious! The best shore adventure I’ve had since leaving home—something to talk about when we get aboard the ship.”
“Ay, and something to do besides talking. We’ve got a little writing to do; at least I have—a bit of a letter to this swaggerer, Mr Francisco de Lara.”
“But, surely, you don’t intend challenging him—after what’s happened?”
“Surely I do. Though, to say the truth, I’ve no great stomach for it, seeing the sort he is. It’s infra dig having to fight one’s inferior, though it be with sword or pistol. It feels like getting into a row with roughs in some slum of a seaport.”
“You’re right there; and as to calling the fellow out, I’d do nothing of the kind, Ned. He’s a bad lot; so is the other. Blackguards both, as their behaviour has shown them. They don’t deserve to be treated as gentlemen.”
“But we’re in California, Will; where the code of the duello takes in such as they. Here even thieves and cut-throats talk about protecting their honour, as they term it; ay, and often act up to their talk. I’ve been told of a duel that took place not long since between two professional gamblers, in which one of them was shot dead in his tracks. And only the other day a judge was called out by a man he had tried, and convicted, of some misdemeanour! Well, the judge not only went, but actually killed the cad who’d stood before him as a criminal! All that seems very absurd, but so it is. And if this scarlet-cloaked cavalier don’t show the white-feather, and back out, I’ll either have to kill, or cripple him; though like as not he may do one or the other for me.”
“But don’t you think, Ned, you’ve had enough out of him?”
“In what way?”
“Why, in the way of revanche. For my part, I should decidedly say you had by far the best of it. After your first encounter in the morning, I thought differently; and would have so counselled you. Then the insult offered you remained unpunished. The other has put a different face on the affair; and now that he’s got more than he gave, I think you should rest satisfied, and let things stand as they are—if he do. Certainly, after that knock and tumble, it’s his place to sing out.”