“Mr. Pechorin!” exclaimed the captain of dragoons. “Allow me to point out that you are not here to preach... Let us lose no time, in case anyone should ride through the gorge and we should be seen.”
“Very well. Doctor, come here!”
The doctor came up to me. Poor doctor! He was paler than Grushnitski had been ten minutes before.
The words which followed I purposely pronounced with a pause between each—loudly and distinctly, as the sentence of death is pronounced:
“Doctor, these gentlemen have forgotten, in their hurry, no doubt, to put a bullet in my pistol. I beg you to load it afresh—and properly!”
“Impossible!” cried the captain, “impossible! I loaded both pistols. Perhaps the bullet has rolled out of yours... That is not my fault! And you have no right to load again... No right at all. It is altogether against the rules, I shall not allow it”...
“Very well!” I said to the captain. “If so, then you and I shall fight on the same terms”...
He came to a dead stop.
Grushnitski stood with his head sunk on his breast, embarrassed and gloomy.
“Let them be!” he said at length to the captain, who was going to pull my pistol out of the doctor’s hands. “You know yourself that they are right.”