Szalay had sat in a gloomy silence, and, appreciating his feelings, I had taken little notice of him. He now rather astonished me by starting up and exclaiming, “I will fight! I will fight this duel!”
“Better not,” I observed laconically.
“Yes, I will!” he repeated, pacing the room in a state of nervous excitement. “Don’t think me mad; it is by far the most sensible course to take. I have got to die; my life is forfeit; the Jaguar never turns off from the prey he has marked down. Better a thousand times fall by a soldier’s bullet in open day, when the chances are nominally equal, than be done to death in secret by one of Rallenstein’s butchers. Yes, my friends, I am resolved; do not try to turn me.” For we had simultaneously began to exclaim against his decision. “Herr Tyrrell, if you will honour me by standing my friend, it would be a great favour, the last I shall probably ask of any man; if you will see this Paulssen and arrange the meeting for as soon after daybreak as possible. I have the courage now and am in the mood; who knows how long it may last?”
“It is sheer suicide,” I remonstrated; “if this De Hayn is a dead shot, and you——”
He laughed. “I am to die assuredly within the next forty-eight hours.”
“Not necessarily!” I objected.
“You are a tower of strength, Herr Tyrrell,” he replied wistfully. “But even you cannot stand against our King Jaguar, and in any event you will have enough to do to save our friend here. Now will you go to Paulssen at once? I ask you as a friend.”
He was not to be dissuaded, and perhaps both Von Lindheim and I had a secret feeling that, on his chances, the course he urged had something to commend it. So, after waiting for a comedy scene with the doctor, who paid us another fussy visit, during which he nearly succeeded in making his patient actually swallow a manifestly loathsome draught, I went off to Lieutenant Paulssen’s lodgings and arranged preliminaries for the meeting which was to take place at daybreak. My pugnacious friend was sullenly gratified, receiving my communication with a significant, “It is well.”
Having a pretty shrewd idea of the fellow’s sense and capabilities, I wasted no time, but simply and curtly settled the necessary details of the meeting, and returned to Von Lindheim’s.
The rest of the night I spent in coaching my poor principal in the use of his weapon. I had on his behalf naturally chosen pistols for the encounter, as giving a rather better chance; with swords he would have been as a sheep before a butcher.