The servant disappeared with the pistols. Eskurola, apologizing gravely, went to the desk and wrote—apparently the lines of which he had spoken. He sanded them, folded the paper, lit a candle and sealed the missive with an engraved jade ring that he wore on the little finger of his left hand.
“This is your first duel, sir?” he said to Cartaret. He said it much as an Englishman at luncheon might ask an American guest whether he had ever eaten turbot.
“Yes,” said Cartaret.
“Well, you may have what the gamblers of London call ‘beginner’s luck.’”
The servant knocked at the door.
“Will you be so good as to take the pistols?” asked Don Ricardo in English of Cartaret. “It appears better if I do not speak with him. Thank you. And please to tell him in French that he may have your mare and saddle-bags ready in the gateway within five minutes, in case you should want them.”
Cartaret obeyed.
Eskurola again held the door for his guest to pass.
“After you, sir,” he said.
They crossed the court-yard leisurely and shoulder to shoulder, for all the world as if they were two friends going out to enjoy the view. Any one observing them from the windows, had there been any one, would have said that Don Ricardo was pointing out to Cartaret the beauties of the scene. In reality he was saying: