“And I,” said Henry.

“Ay, you have escaped, Henry; let me congratulate you.”

“Not so fast; we may fire again.”

“I can afford to do that,” he said, with a smile.

“You should have fired, sir, according to custom,” said the admiral; “this is not the proper thing.”

“What, fire at your friend?”

“Oh, that’s all very well!  You are my friend for a time, vampyre as you are, and I intend you shall fire.”

“If Mr. Henry Bannerworth demands another fire, I have no objection to it, and will fire at him; but as it is I shall not do so, indeed, it would be quite useless for him to do so—­to point mortal weapons at me is mere child’s play, they will not hurt me.”

“The devil they won’t,” said the admiral.

“Why, look you here,” said Sir Francis Varney, stepping forward and placing his hand to his neckerchief; “look you here; if Mr. Henry Bannerworth should demand another fire, he may do so with the same bullet.”

“The same bullet!” said Marchdale, stepping forward—­“the same bullet!  How is this?”

“My eyes,” said Jack; “who’d a thought it; there’s a go!  Wouldn’t he do for a dummy—­to lead a forlorn hope, or to put among the boarders?”

“Here,” said Sir Francis, handing a bullet to Henry Bannerworth—­“here is the bullet you shot at me.”

Henry looked at it—­it was blackened by powder; and then Marchdale seized it and tried it in the pistol, but found the bullet fitted Henry’s weapon.

“By heavens, it is so!” he exclaimed, stepping back and looking at Varney from top to toe in horror and amazement.

“D——­e,” said the admiral, “if I understand this.  Why Jack Pringle, you dog, here’s a strange fish.”

“On, no! there’s plenty on ’um in some countries.”

“Will you insist upon another fire, or may I consider you satisfied?”

“I shall object,” said Marchdale.  “Henry, this affair must go no further; it would be madness—­worse than madness, to fight upon such terms.”

“So say I,” said the admiral.  “I will not have anything to do with you, Sir Francis.  I’ll not be your second any longer.  I didn’t bargain for such a game as this.  You might as well fight with the man in brass armour, at the Lord Mayor’s show, or the champion at a coronation.”

“Oh!” said Jack Pringle; “a man may as well fire at the back of a halligator as a wamphigher.”

“This must be considered as having been concluded,” said Mr. Marchdale.

“No!” said Henry.

“And wherefore not?”

“Because I have not received his fire.”

“Heaven forbid you should.”

“I may not with honour quit the ground without another fire.”

“Under ordinary circumstances there might be some shadow of an excuse for your demand; but as it is there is none.  You have neither honour nor credit to gain by such an encounter, and, certainly, you can gain no object.”