“Well, I’ve never seen anything like that
before!” said the judge. “Wilson,
I am going to confess now, that I wasn’t quite
able to believe in that leg business, and had a suspicion
that it was a put-up convenience between those twins;
and when Count Angelo fainted I thought I saw the
whole scheme—thought it was pretext No.
2, and would be followed by others till twelve o’clock
should arrive, and Luigi would get off with all the
credit of seeming to want to fight and yet not have
to fight, after all. But I was mistaken.
His pluck proved it. He’s a brave fellow
and did want to fight.”
“There isn’t any doubt about that,”
said Howard, and added, in a grieved tone, “but
what an unworthy sort of Christian that Angelo is—I
hope and believe there are not many like him.
It is not right to engage in a duel on the Sabbath—I
could not approve of that myself; but to finish one
that has been begun—that is a duty, let
the day be what it may.”
They strolled along, still wondering, still talking.
“It is a curious circumstance,” remarked
the surgeon, halting Wilson a moment to paste so more
court-plaster on his chin, which had gone to leaking
blood again, “that in this duel neither of the
parties who handled the pistols lost blood while nearly
all the persons present in the mere capacity of guests
got hit. I have not heard of such a thing before.
Don’t you think it unusual?”
“Yes,” said the Judge, “it has struck
me as peculiar. Peculiar and unfortunate.
I was annoyed at it, all the time. In the case
of Angelo it made no great difference, because he
was in a measure concerned, though not officially;
but it troubled me to see the seconds compromised,
and yet I knew no way to mend the matter.
“There was no way to mend it,” said Howard,
whose ear was being readjusted now by the doctor;
“the code fixes our place, and it would not
have been lawful to change it. If we could have
stood at your side, or behind you, or in front of
you, it—but it would not have been legitimate
and the other parties would have had a just right to
complain of our trying to protect ourselves from danger;
infractions of the code are certainly not permissible
in any case whatever.”
Wilson offered no remarks. It seemed to him
that there was very little place here for so much
solemnity, but he judged that if a duel where nobody
was in danger or got crippled but the seconds and the
outsiders had nothing ridiculous about it for these
gentlemen, his pointing out that feature would probably
not help them to see it.
He invited them in to take a nightcap, and Howard
and the judge accepted, but the doctor said he would
have to go and see how Angelo’s principal wound
was getting on.
[It was now Sunday,
and in the afternoon Angelo was to be received
into the Baptist communion
by immersion—a doubtful prospect, the
doctor feared.]
