Fernando reeled as if he had been struck a blow.  He had read of duels, but, in the solitude of his western home on the farm, he had never known of any.  They were the bloody inventions of more polite civilization.  One had been fought between two trappers at a trading post, not over forty miles away, in which rifles at thirty paces were used, and both men were killed.  The preacher had said it was murder.  Fernando was brave; but he shrank from a duel, and it was not until his pride had been appealed to, that he determined to fight.  Then Terrence assured him the lieutenant’s friend was waiting; all that was wanting was the weapons.

“I must talk with Sukey.”

Sukey was sent for, and when the tall, lanky fellow entered the apartment, Fernando told him all.

“Don’t you be in the game, Fernando.  Let me tell you, don’t you be in it,” Sukey answered.

But he was informed that he must, or be forever disgraced.  Besides, his enemy was a hated Briton, whom their country was almost on the verge of war with, and it would not be a bad thing to kill him in advance.

“Well, if you must be in the game, Fernando, fight with hatchets.  You know you used to throw a hatchet twenty steps and split a pumpkin every time.  Fight with hatchets.”

It was a novel mode of dueling; but Terrence took the proposition to the lieutenant’s friend.  The Briton said his friend was a gentlemen, willing to fight with any of the weapons which civilized gentlemen used, and if Mr. Stevens would not consent to the same, the lieutenant would publish him as a barbarian and a coward.  Pistols were settled on as a compromise, and Terrence went away to settle the final arrangements.  He returned with a smile on his face and, rubbing his hands, said: 

“Cheer up, me boy, it’s all settled.”

“What? won’t we fight?”

“Yes, it’s settled that you will fight.”

For a long time, Fernando was silent, and then he said: 

“When will it take place, Terrence?”

“To-morrow morning at sunrise.”

Fernando did not go to school that day.  Sukey was enjoined to keep the matter a secret, and he went to his classroom as if nothing unusual were about to happen.  Fernando spent the day in writing letters to be sent home in case he should not survive the affair which, after all, he believed to be disgraceful.  Dueling he thought little better than murder; but he was in for it and determined not to show the white feather.  Don’t blame Fernando, for he lived in a barbarous age, when the “code of honor” was thought to be honorable.  His chief remorse was for his madcap, drunken freak, which had been the provocation for the event, and yet, when he came to think of the ludicrousness of his adventures, he smiled.

More than once on that gloomy day he thought of Morgianna, whom in reality he loved at first sight.  Would he ever see her again, or was she only the evening star, which had risen on the last hours of his existence?  When Sukey returned, he held a long interview with him and gave him a bundle of letters and papers to send home if—­he could not finish the sentence.