“Let that be my apology to you, gentlemen. If you’re not satisfied with it, I’m willing and ready to take his place—with either of you.”
“It’s perfectly satisfactory, monsieur,” frankly responded the Kentuckian, “so far as I’m concerned. And I think I may say as much for Captain Kearney.”
“Indeed, yes,” assented the Irishman, adding: “We absolve you, sir, from all blame. It’s evident you knew nothing of that shining panoply till now;” as he spoke, pointing to the steel shirt.
The French-Creole haughtily, but courteously, bowed thanks. Then, facing once more to Santander, and repeating the “Lâche” strode silently away from the ground.
They had all mistaken the character of the individual, who, despite a somewhat forbidding face, was evidently a man of honour, as he had proved himself.
“What d’ye weesh me to do wi’ him?” interrogated the Texan, still keeping Santander in firm clutch. “Shed we shoot him or hang him?”
“Hang!” simultaneously shouted the two hackney-drivers, who seemed as bitter against the disgraced duellist as if he had “bilked” them of a fare.
“So I say, too,” solemnly pronounced the Texan; “shootin’s too good for the like o’ him; a man capable o’ sech a cowardly, murderous trick desarves to die the death o’ a dog.”
Then, with an interrogating look at Crittenden, he added: “Which is’t to be, lootenant?”
“Neither, Cris,” answered the Kentuckian. “If I mistake not, the gentleman has had enough punishment without either. If he’s got so much as a spark of shame or conscience—”