Though their antagonists had not yet arrived, Kearney and Crittenden got out, leaving the young surgeon busied with his cutlery and bandage apparatus.
“I hope you won’t have to use them, doctor,” remarked Kearney, with a light laugh, as he sprang out of the carriage. “I don’t want you to practise upon me till we’ve made conquest of Mexico.”
“And not then, I trust,” soberly responded the surgeon.
Crittenden followed, carrying the swords; and the two, leaping across the drain which separated the road from the duelling ground, took stand under a tree.
Rock remained firm on the coach-box, still seated and silent. As the field was full under his view, and within range of his rifle, he knew that, like the doctor, he would be near enough if wanted.
Ten minutes passed—most of the time in solemn silence, on the part of the principal, with some anxious thoughts. No matter how courageous a man may be—however skilled in weapons, or accustomed to the deadly use of them—he cannot, at such a crisis, help having a certain tremor of the heart, if not a misgiving of conscience. He has come there to kill, or be killed; and the thought of either should be sufficient to disturb mental equanimity. At such times, he who is not gifted with natural courage had needs have a good cause, and confidence in the weapon to be used. Florence Kearney possessed all three; and though it was his first appearance in a duel, he had no fear for the result. Even the still, sombre scene, with the long grey moss hanging down from the dark cypress trees, like the drapery of a hearse, failed to inspire him with dread. If, at times, a slight nervousness came over him, it was instantly driven off by the thought of the insult he had received—and, perhaps also, a little by the remembrance of those dark eyes he fancied would flash proudly if he triumphed, and weep bitterly were he to suffer discomfiture. Very different were his feelings now from those he experienced less than forty-eight hours before, when he was on his way to the house of Don Ignacio Valverde. That night, before leaving it, he was good as sure he possessed the heart of Don Ignacio’s daughter. Indeed, she had all but told him so; and was this not enough to nerve him for the encounter near at hand?
Very near now—close to commencing. The rumbling of wheels heard through the drooping festoonery of the trees, proclaimed that a second carriage was approaching along the Shell Road. It could only be that containing the antagonists. And it was that. In less than ten minutes after, it drew up on the causeway, about twenty paces to the rear of the one already arrived. Two men got out, who, although wrapped in cloaks and looking as large as giants through the thick mist, could be recognised as Carlos Santander and his second. There was a third individual, who, like the young surgeon, remained by the carriage—no doubt a doctor, too,—making the duelling party symmetrical and complete.
Santander and his friend having pulled off their cloaks and tossed them back into the carriage, turned towards the wet ditch, and also leaped over it.
The first performed the feat somewhat awkwardly, drooping down upon the further bank with a ponderous thud. He was a large, heavily built man—altogether unlike one possessing the activity necessary for a good swordsman.
His antagonist might have augured well from his apparent clumsiness, but for what he had heard of him. For Carlos Santander, though having the repute of a swaggerer, with some suspicion of cowardice, had proved himself a dangerous adversary by twice killing his man. His second—a French-Creole, called Duperon—enjoyed a similar reputation, he, too, having been several times engaged in affairs that resulted fatally. At this period New Orleans was emphatically the city of the duello—for this speciality, perhaps the most noted in the world.