The Master of the Ceremonies

“I can. I have been out six times, and I’m going to show you how to hit your man and save yourself.”

“I don’t want to hit Major Rockley.”

“But I want you to hit him and save yourself. My dear boy, you are worth five thousand Major Rockleys to your father, and we must not have you hurt.”

As he spoke, to Richard’s great surprise, he took out a brace of duelling pistols with flask and bullets, and after loading skilfully he took a few cards from his breast, and going to the stunted tree, tacked one on each of two boughs about on a level with a man’s outstretched arms, another on the trunk, and another higher still, where the head would be.

“I used to practise with the pistol a great deal at one time, Dick, and I could hit either of those address cards as many times as I liked.”

“Then I will not quarrel with you and call you out.”

“Don’t,” said the Colonel, handing him a pistol, and proceeding to step out fifteen paces. “There,” he said, “stand there and aim at that card on the trunk. That is where a man’s heart would be. I will count slowly, and when I come to three, raise your pistol quickly and fire.”

“One – two —three!”

Richard Linnell raised his pistol, and drew the trigger, but there was no report.

“It will not go off,” he said.

“No,” replied the Colonel; “pistols never will, unless you cock them.”

“Pish!” ejaculated Richard, repairing the omission. “Again.”

The Colonel counted once more; there was a flash, a sharp report, and a leaf or two fell from high up a tree to the right of the target.

“Take the other,” said the Colonel quietly; “hold it a little more firmly, and raise it slowly. The moment your eye glances straight along the barrel, press the trigger softly, so as not to jerk the pistol. Ready? Now – one – two —three!”

There was another sharp report, and the Colonel smiled.

“That’s better,” he said. “Your first bullet went over the enemy’s head twenty feet or so. That one would have him in the shoulder. Try again.”

The Colonel busied himself loading the pistols with all the quickness of an adept as his pupil fired, keeping him at it for quite a couple of hours, with intervals of rest. Now he made him fire at one card, then at another, practising as at his adversary’s arms, head, and body, till Richard looked at him wearily.

“Yes; that will do now,” said Colonel Mellersh. “You may congratulate yourself, Dick, upon being a horribly bad shot; but you will be able to handle your pistol properly, and raise it like a man who is used to the weapon.”

“What is the use of that,” said Richard, smiling, “if I cannot aim straight?”

“A great deal. If you had taken hold of your pistol in a bungling way to-morrow, Rockley would have felt that he had you at his mercy, and he would have been as cool as a fish. Now he will see that you know what a pistol is, and be perfectly ignorant of the fact that you are unskilful of aim. He will think he has a dangerous adversary before him, and be more likely nervous than cool.”

“I see,” said Richard, with his eyes lighting up. “I’ve had my turn at the scoundrel, and I’m satisfied. Of course I don’t want to hit him, but at the same time I don’t want him to hit me.”

“Oh!” said the Colonel drily, “I thought you did.”

“What! want him to hit me! Why?”

“You seemed so cool over it.”

“Oh, but I’m not,” said Richard gravely. “I suppose a good shot would hit one of those cards?”

“Time was, Dick, when I could have put half a dozen shots in either of them. I don’t know that I could hit one now.”

He raised the pistol he had been loading as he spoke, took a quick aim, and hit the centre card just on the edge, driving it into the bark of the tree.

“Bad!” he said. “Let’s try another.”

He aimed at the card representing the enemy’s right arm fired, and struck it also about a quarter of an inch from the edge.

“Out of practice, Dick,” he said, thrusting the pistols into their dark cloth bags, and replacing them in his pocket. “There, my lad, let’s get home. Dine lightly this evening, go to bed in good time, and have a long night’s rest.”

“When is the meeting?” said Richard calmly.

“At six to-morrow morning.”

“Where did you say?”

“On the sands, two miles out below the east cliff.”

“Why there?”

“We shall want an excuse for going out so early, my lad. We can be going to bathe, and so be unnoticed, and there will be no fear of an interruption,” said the Colonel grimly. “This is to be no play affair, Dick. An officer in His Majesty’s service cannot submit to a horse-whipping from a civilian without trying to get ample satisfaction.”

He looked at Richard with a grave air of pity in his countenance.

“Did you ever shoot a man?” said Richard, as they were walking briskly back.

“Do you mean wounded or killed?”

“The latter.”

“Once, Dick.”

The young man’s countenance contracted, and he looked at his companion almost in horror.

“Yes,” said the Colonel; “it is horrible, Dick, and the remembrance that the man was an utter scoundrel does not make the fact much less horrible after all these years.”

They walked on for some distance in silence, before Richard Linnell broke in upon his companion’s reverie.

“Was the duel about – a lady?”

The Colonel uttered a harsh laugh.

“It’s an arrangement of nature, my dear Ulysses,” he said. “If you see a couple of stags smashing their antlers, a couple of bulls goring each other, or two rams battering one another’s heads, a brace of pheasants or barn-door cocks pecking and spurring each other to death, what’s it about? A lady. The same with mankind, Dick; a duel is almost invariably more or less directly about a lady.”

Richard Linnell went on thoughtfully for a time, and then turned with a sad smile to the Colonel.

“So even you had to do battle once in such a cause?”

“Not exactly, Dick; it was upon another’s behalf. An utter scoundrel, just such a fellow as Rockley, did my best friend a mortal wrong. One day, Dick, it was a happy, peaceful home that I used to visit, where as sweet-natured, true, and gentle a man as ever breathed lived in happy trust and faith in his sweet young wife; the next there was a stain – an indelible stain – upon that hearth-stone, and my poor friend lay stricken down by the shock, and nearly died of the brain fever that ensued.”