In a dozen strides he was in their midst, and before either of the two seconds, equally astonished, could interfere, he had caught Santander by the throat, and tore open the breast of his shirt!
Underneath was then seen another shirt, not flannel, nor yet linen or cotton, but link-and-chain steel!
Chapter Eight.
A Disgraced Duellist.
Impossible to describe the scene which followed, or the expression upon the faces of those men who stood beside Santander. The Texan, strong as he was big, still kept hold of him, though now at arm’s length; in his grasp retaining the grown man with as much apparent ease as though it were but a child. And there, sure enough, under the torn flannel shirt, all could see a doublet of chain armour, impenetrable to sword’s point as plate of solid steel.
Explanation this of why Carlos Santander was so ready to take the field in a duel, and had twice left his antagonist lifeless upon it. It explained also why, when leaping across the water-ditch, he had dropped so heavily upon the farther bank. Weighted as he was, no wonder.
By this time the two doctors, with the pair of hackney-drivers, seeing that something had turned up out of the common course, parting from the carriages, had also come upon the ground; the jarveys, in sympathy with Cris Rock, crying, “Shame!” In the Crescent City even a cabman has something of chivalry in his nature—the surroundings teach and invite it—and now the detected scoundrel seemed without a single friend. For he—hitherto acting as such, seeing the imposture, which had been alike practised on himself, stepped up to his principal, and looking him scornfully in the face, hissed out the word “Lâche!”
Then turning to Kearney and Crittenden he added—