“Dear fellow!” cried his opponent, scrambling upright.  “So sorry!  I say, that’s a bad one.”  With a stick and a handkerchief, he twisted on a tourniquet, muttering condolence:  “Pain much?  Lost my balance, you know.  That better?—­What a clumsy accident!” Then, dodging out from the plantain screen, and beckoning,—­“All you chaps!  Come over here!”

Nesbit came running, but at sight of the bloody victim, pulled up short.  “What ho!” he whispered, first with a stare, then a grin of mysterious joy.  Sturgeon gave a sympathetic whistle, and stolidly unwound bandages.  At first the two Napoleons remained aloof, but at last, yielding to indignant shouts, haughtily approached.  The little group stood at fault.

Heywood wiped his sword-blade very carefully on a plantain leaf; then stood erect, to address them with a kind of cool severity.

“I regret this more than anybody,” he declared, pausing, and picking his words.  “We were at practice, and my friend had the misfortune to be run through the arm.”

Chantel flung out his hands, in a motion at once furious and impudent.

“Zut!  What a farce!—­Will you tell me, please, since your friend has disabled himself”—­

Heywood wheeled upon him, scornfully.

“You have no right to such an expression,” he stated, with a coldness which conveyed more rage than the other man’s heat.  “This was entirely my fault.  It’s I who have spoiled your—­arrangement, and therefore I am quite ready to take up my friend’s quarrel.”

“I have no quarrel with you,” replied Chantel, contemptuously.  “You saw last night how he—­”

“He was quicker than I, that’s all.  By every circumstance, I’m the natural proxy.  Besides”—­the young man appealed to the company, smiling—­“besides, what a pity to postpone matters, and spoil the occasion, when Doctor Chantel has gone to the trouble of a clean shirt.”

The doctor recoiled, flung up a trembling arm, and as quickly dropped it.  His handsome face burned darker, then faded with a mortal pallor, and for one rigid moment, took on such a strange beauty as though it were about to be translated into bronze.  His brown fingers twitched, became all nerves and sinews and white knuckles.  Then, stepping backward, he withdrew from the circle.

“Very well,” he said lightly.  “Since we are all so—­irregular.  I will take the substitute.”

Rudolph gave a choking cry, and would have come forward; but Sturgeon clung to the wounded arm, and bound on his bandage.

“Hold still, there!” he scolded, as though addressing a horse; then growled in Heywood’s ear, “Why did you go lose your temper?”

“Didn’t.  We can’t let him walk over us, though.”  The young man held the sword across his throat, and whispered, “Only angry up to here!”

And indeed, through the anxious preliminary silence, he stood waiting as cool and ready as a young centurion.