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They were listening for the whistle agreed upon, when suddenly savage cries resounded in the air, accompanied by reports which certainly did not issue from the car where the duelists were. The reports continued in front and the whole length of the train. Cries of terror proceeded from the interior of the cars. Colonel Proctor and Mr.
A plank was to be placed between the duelists, and neither allowed to cross it. On either side of the plank lines were drawn at the length of the broadsword and three feet extra, and if the duelist stepped back across this line he lost the fight. These terms had a large element of the ridiculous about them.
There was not a shoulder among them that he could not lay a hand upon and voice with surety the order of the law. Courage of a kind they all had, names once written gloriously in history but now merely passports into dubious traffics. Heroes of boulevard exploits, duelists, card-players; could it be possible that any sane man should be their dupe?
At this point the police noticed that the public had massed themselves together on the right and left of the field; they therefore begged a delay, while they should put these poor people in a place of safety. The request was granted. The police having ordered the two multitudes to take positions behind the duelists, we were once more ready.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon.... The duelists stepped from off the cloak, tried operations at a distance, hung for a moment in the wind of indecision, then put down the match from the gunners' hands. The Monitor darted from us, her head toward the shoal water known as the Middle Ground.
When we arrived at the garden, which was only a stone's-throw walk from the posada, Señor de Medina produced two swords with cutting edges, and blades five feet long; for we were to fight in Spanish fashion, and Spanish duelists both cut and thrust, and, when occasion serves, use the left hand as a help in parrying.
It only remains to be said that as they trudged back together a little venom worked in their little hearts. They hated both duelists one for treating them like dogs, the other for sending them where they had got treated like dogs; and they disliked each other for seeing them treated like dogs. One bitterness they escaped, it did not occur to them to hate themselves for being dogs.
"Sir," began the little fellow, drawing his figure up, "men of honor never resort to such subterfuges to evade the consequences of their own acts." "Hold your tongue, child! You know nothing about what you are talking of. Men of honor are not duelists, but peaceable, law-abiding citizens. Don't be frightened, my brave little bantam!
"I think," she said, "that you had better go and find Miss Fentolin." "Don't talk nonsense! You can't think I have risked giving myself away to you for nothing? I mean to search this room, to read the papers which you are typing." She glanced around her a little contemptuously. "You are welcome," she assured him. "Pray proceed." They exchanged the glances of duelists.
They used stones, sticks, earth, and anything they thought might turn a bullet. Some built comparatively large ones, while others seemed content with little ones. This procedure caused a discussion among the men. Some wished to fight like duelists, believing it to be correct to stand erect and be, from their feet to their foreheads, a mark. They said they scorned the devices of the cautious.
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