The blow was dealt straight between his eyes: he was a gross big-boned man, and he fell heavily. For the time he was stunned. The women ran, screaming, out of the room. The peaceable Commander trembled from head to foot. Two of the men present, who, to give them their due, were no cowards, locked the doors. “You don’t go,” they said, “till we see whether he recovers or not.” Cold water, assisted by the landlady’s smelling salts, brought the General to his senses after a while. He whispered something to one of his friends, who immediately turned to me. “The General challenges Mr. Romayne,” he said. “As one of his seconds, I demand an appointment for to-morrow morning.” I refused to make any appointment unless the doors were first unlocked, and we were left free to depart. “Our carriage is waiting outside,” I added. “If it returns to the hotel without us, there will be an inquiry.” This latter consideration had its effect. On their side, the doors were opened. On our side, the appointment was made. We left the house.
IV.
IN consenting to receive the General’s representative, it is needless to say that I merely desired to avoid provoking another quarrel. If those persons were really impudent enough to call at the hotel, I had arranged to threaten them with the interference of the police, and so to put an end to the matter. Romayne expressed no opinion on the subject, one way or the other. His conduct inspired me with a feeling of uneasiness. The filthy insult of which he had been made the object seemed to be rankling in his mind. He went away thoughtfully to his own room. “Have you nothing to say to me?” I asked. He only answered: “Wait till to-morrow.”
The next day the seconds appeared.
I had expected to see two of the men with whom we had dined. To my astonishment, the visitors proved to be officers of the General’s regiment. They brought proposals for a hostile meeting the next morning; the choice of weapons being left to Romayne as the challenged man.
It was now quite plain to me that the General’s peculiar method of card-playing had, thus far, not been discovered and exposed. He might keep doubtful company, and might (as I afterward heard) be suspected in certain quarters. But that he still had, formally-speaking, a reputation to preserve, was proved by the appearance of the two gentlemen present as his representatives. They declared, with evident sincerity, that Romayne had made a fatal mistake; had provoked the insult offered to him; and had resented it by a brutal and cowardly outrage. As a man and a soldier, the General was doubly bound to insist on a duel. No apology would be accepted, even if an apology were offered.
In this emergency, as I understood it, there was but one course to follow. I refused to receive the challenge.
Being asked for my reasons, I found it necessary to speak within certain limits. Though we knew the General to be a cheat, it was a delicate matter to dispute his right to claim satisfaction, when he had found two officers to carry his message. I produced the seized cards (which Romayne had brought away with him in his pocket), and offered them as a formal proof that my friend had not been mistaken.
The seconds—evidently prepared for this circumstance by their principal—declined to examine the cards. In the first place, they said, not even the discovery of foul play (supposing the discovery to have been really made) could justify Romayne’s conduct. In the second place, the General’s high character made it impossible, under any circumstances, that he could be responsible. Like ourselves, he had rashly associated with bad company; and he had been the innocent victim of an error or a fraud, committed by some other person present at the table.
Driven to my last resource, I could now only base my refusal to receive the challenge on the ground that we were Englishmen, and that the practice of dueling had been abolished in England. Both the seconds at once declined to accept this statement in justification of my conduct.