“This sensible warm motion to become
     A kneaded clod”—­

was an absolute pang.  I could have died a martyr, and despised the flame, or rather rejoiced in it, as a security that I should not perish forgotten.  But a fancied wrong, an obscure dispute, the whole future of an existence flung away for the jealous dreams of a mad Frenchman, or the Sport of a coquette, of whom I knew as little as of her fantastic lover, threw me into a fever of scorn for the solemn follies of mankind.

The captain returned.  I had not stirred from the spot.

“I regret,” said he, “that my friend is wholly intractable.  He has convinced himself, if he can convince no one else, that he has wholly lost the good opinion of his fair one, and that you are the cause.  Some communication which he had from London, informed him of your frequent intercourse with her father.  This rendered him suspicious, and the peculiar attention with which you were treated last night, produced a demand for an explanation; which, of course, heightened the quarrel.  The inamorata, probably not displeased to have more suitors than one, whether in amusement or triumph, appears to have assisted his error, if such it be; and he returned home, stung to madness by what he terms her infidelity.  He now demands your formal abandonment of the pursuit.”

All my former feelings of offence recurred at the words, and I hotly asked—­“Well, sir, to whom must I kneel—­to the lady or the gentleman?  Take my answer back—­that I shall do neither.  Where is your friend to be found?”

He pointed to a clump of frees within a few hundred yards, and I followed him.  I there saw my antagonist; a tall, handsome young man, but with a countenance of such dejection that he might have sat for the picture of despair.  It was clear that his case was one for which there was no tonic, but what the wits of the day called a course of steel.  Beside him stood a greyhaired old figure, of a remarkably intelligent countenance, though stooped slightly with age.  He was introduced to me as General Deschamps; and in a few well-expressed words, he mentioned that he attended, from respect to the British, to offer his services to me on an occasion “which he deeply regretted, but which circumstances unfortunately rendered necessary, and which all parties were doubtless anxious to conclude before it should produce any irritation in the neighbourhood.”

To the offer of choice of weapons, I returned an answer of perfect indifference.  It had happened, that as my father had destined me for diplomacy, and had conceived the science to have but two essentials, French and fencing, I was tolerably expert in both.  Swords were chosen.  We were placed on the ground, and the conflict began.  My antagonist was evidently a master of his art; but there is no weapon whose use depends so much upon the mind of the moment as the sword.  He was evidently resolved to kill or be killed; and the desperation with which he rushed on