Don Ricardo’s arm had just risen a trifle above his shoulder and then come back to its level.... It would come now—the flash, the quick pang that would outstrip and shut out the very sound of the explosion—come now and be over.
The man was taking an aim, careful, deadly....
But if everything else had been quick, this was an eternity. Cartaret could feel the Basque’s eye, he could see that the leveled pistol-barrel covered his throat directly below the ear. He wanted to shout out to Eskurola to shoot; to say, “You’ve got me!” He ground his teeth to enforce his tongue to silence. And still he waited. Good God, would the man never fire?
Don Ricardo was lowering his pistol, and his pistol was smoking. He had fired. Moreover, he had aimed truly. But he had chosen his weapon honorably—it was the one that did not hold a bullet.
Cartaret was dazed, but knew instantly what to do. As if it was the performance of an act long since subconsciously decided upon, he raised his own pistol slowly—the death-laden pistol—and shot straight up into the air....
The smoke was still circling about the American’s head when he saw Eskurola striding toward him. The Basque’s face was a study of humiliation and dismay.
“What is this?” he demanded. “After I have tried to kill you, you do not kill me? You refuse to kill me? You inflict the greatest insult and the only one that I cannot resent?”
Cartaret threw down his pistol: it frightened him now. “I don’t know whether it’s an insult to let you live or not,” he said, “and I don’t care a damn. Where’s my mare?”
He went to the gate. It was opened by the French-speaking servant, wide-eyed now, but with his curiosity inarticulate. Cartaret mounted. His hand trembled as he gathered up the reins. He was angry at this and at the comedy that Fate had made of his attempted heroism. Was there ever before, he reflected, a duel the two principals of which were angry because they survived?
Eskurola was standing at the edge of the unrailed drawbridge that crossed the precipitous abyss. It was evident even to Cartaret that the Basque was still too amazed to think, much less speak, coherently; that something beyond his comprehension had occurred; that a phenomenon hitherto unknown had wrecked his cosmos.