And the two principals—Gall and Loftus—what kind of sensations do you suppose were theirs? Did they look forward to their possible fate—death—with calmness? Was the unruffled exterior, shown to the world, a type of the unruffled mind within? No, you cannot suppose it. Loftus was perhaps the least troubled of the two, for his was the more composed and easy nature; but each had his share of—anticipation.
Why, how could it be otherwise? Try and realize the situation to your minds, my boys; to make it your own. With the rising of the morrow's sun, you are going out to be shot at yourself and to shoot at another. Before that sun sets, you may be lying cold and dead; your life in this world over; your soul before its Maker. It is very solemn; almost too solemn to write of. When men go out to fight duels, they are represented to be full of inward bravery, as poets have sung and friends have boasted. Never you believe it. Or, if it be so, they have been living without God in the world, callous to the never-ending future. Ah, no! Physically brave, as to the possible flesh wound, perhaps; but not brave as to the consequences it may involve—a sudden rush into eternity, uncalled.
Leek and James Talbot were here and there and everywhere—men of importance that day. The fixing upon the meeting-spot took them the whole of the morning. Next they had an interview with the two principals conjointly, and, to give them justice, did all that argument could do to induce the affair to be abandoned. Mr. Brown, fit to burst with the great secret confided to him, and of which he could not talk, went to every conceivable corner of the town in search of the two other sharers of the secret, and went in vain. He found them at length, when the afternoon was passing, at the Hotel des Bains, in Leek's chamber. As on the previous night, they had the pistols out, and this time they did not hurry them away.
"Well, how's it going?" demanded Brown, breathless with the wind and his own haste.
"How should it be going?" retorted Leek, not pleased at being pursued by Brown major like this.
"Is it off?" resumed Brown, wiping his hot face. "It's such a wind, Onions."
"No, it's not off, and it's not likely to be off. Lock up the pistols for now, Shrewsbury."
"But it's awful, you know," continued Brown, mounting the foot-rail of the bed, and placing himself astride it. "When I got up this morning it seemed to me too improbable a thing really to take place. Suppose one of 'em gets killed? I say, Shrewsbury, couldn't you persuade them off it?"
Lord Shrewsbury gave his head an emphatic shake. "We have been at both of them, Gall and Bertie, and tried everything tryable. You might as well speak to two posts. Let it drop, Brown; it's of no good bothering us."
Brown let it drop, and did it with a good grace: he was powerless. "Have you engaged a surgeon?" he asked.