It was still very early when they crossed the bridge leading into the park, where a freshly erected tent was standing. The youths then told the coachman to stop, and asked Alexander whether he would not like a little breakfast first of all.
"No, thank you," he replied. "People might say I wanted something to put pluck into me. Let us say afterwards—if an afterwards there be!" he added lightly, and in the best of humours.
They proceeded onwards through the wood to the spot agreed upon, and they had not waited more than a few moments before their antagonists also arrived upon the ground.
It was a cloudy, gloomy morning, and there was an expression of gloomy sang-froid on the faces of the young men which suited very well with the morning.
The enemy, smiling, and with nonchalant haughtiness, came strolling arm in arm through the silver poplar woods—Abellino, the large-limbed Conrad,
and Livius. A surgeon and a servant brought up the rear.
The four seconds went apart and conversed together in a low voice; they were evidently arranging the details of the affair. They soon came to an agreement. The extreme retiring distance was fixed at five-and-forty paces, the barriers at five-and-twenty.
During this negociation, Abellino produced a pair of good flint-locked Schneller pistols, and exhibited his skill before the company. He ordered his lackey to throw linden leaves up into the air in front of him, and riddled them with bullets three times running. This he did simply to fill the adversary with terror. Michael, fathoming his object, whispered confidentially in the young artisan's ear—
"We are not going to fire with those pistols, but with ours, which are quite new, and it will not be so easy to show off with them."
Alexander smiled bitterly. "It is all one to me. My life is no more precious to me than those linden leaves."