Chapter Twenty Three.
A Duel without Seconds.
While I was speaking, I saw a change pass over the countenance of my gigantic antagonist—as if some new resolve was forming in his mind, that affected the programme he had already traced out. Was it possible I had touched him on a point of honour? It was this purpose I desired to effect; and, though hopeless it might appear, I continued the only kind of appeal that, with such a spirit, seemed to promise any chance of success.
“You dare not play fair in this game?” I said, banteringly. “You are a coward; and would murder me. You want the first shot: you know you do?”
“It’s a lie!” cried the colossus, raising himself to his full height, and assuming an air of chivalric grandeur I could not have deemed him capable of—“it’s a lie! I don’t wish to murder ye; an’ I don’t want the the first shot neyther.”
“How?”
“I hain’t so little confidence in my shootin’ as to care for you an’ yur jim-crack gun! Nor is Hick Holt in such consate wi’ his life eyther, that he’s afeerd to risk it. Tho’ ye air a stuck-up critter, I won’t gi’ ye the opportunity to ’kuse me o’ foul play. Thur’s grit in ye, I reck’n; and seein’ that’s made me change my mind.”
“What!” I exclaimed, taken by surprise at the speech, and fancying it promised an end to our altercation—“you have changed your mind? you mean to act justly then?”