I do not believe Mohun felt any thing of this sort.  It was not his own life, but his adversary’s death he was playing for; the other was busy, too, with still darker thoughts and purposes.

“Listen,” Guy said in French; “M. de Rosny gives the signal, un, deux, trois; if either fires before the last is fully pronounced, it is murder.”  He looked sharply at Levinge, but the latter seemed studiously to avoid meeting his eye.  Guy felt very uncomfortable and very savage.

The men stood opposite to one another like black marble statues, neither showing a speck of color which might serve as a point de mire, each turning only a side-front to his opponent.

De Rosny pronounced the two first words of the signal in a clear, deliberate voice; the last left his lips almost in a shriek, for, before it was half syllabled, his principal fired.

Quick as the movement was, it was anticipated; as Levinge’s hand stirred, Mohun made a half-face to the right, and looked his enemy straight between the eyes.  That sudden change of position, or the consciousness of detection, probably unsettled the practiced aim, for the ball, that would have drilled Ralph through the heart, only scored a deep furrow in his side.

No one could have guessed that he was touched; he brought his pistol to the level just as coolly as he would have done in the shooting-gallery, and, after the discharge, dropped his hand with measured deliberation.  Before the smoke had curled a yard upward, Horace Levinge sprang into the air, and, with out-stretched arms, fell crashing down upon the grass—­a bullet through his brain.

They turned him over on his back.  It was a ghastly sight; the ball had penetrated just below the arch of the right eyebrow, and all the lower features were swollen and distorted with the blow of last night, adding to the hideous disfigurement.

Is that the face on which the dead man used to spend hours, tending it, like an ancient coquette, with washes and cosmetics, dreading the faintest freckle or sunburn which might mar the smoothness of the delicate skin?  No need of the surgeon there.  Cover it up quickly.  The mother that bore him, if she should recognize him, would recoil in disgust and loathing.

“C’en est fini,” Livingstone said to De Rosny, who stood by shuddering in horror, not at the death, but at the treachery which had preceded it.

None but a Frenchman could have given such an accent to the low, hissing reply, “Je l’espere.”

Then they looked to Mohun’s wound; it was nothing serious:  there were a dozen deeper on the warworn body and limbs.  Indeed, I imagine his general health was materially benefited by the blood-letting.  The first remark he made was when he was depositing his pistol in its case—­tenderly as you would lay a child in its cradle—­“Do you believe in presentiments now, Guy?”

The sullen sun broke out just as they turned to go, and peered curiously through the boughs, till it found out and lighted on the angular ominous heap, shrouded with a cloak, that, ten minutes ago, was a strong, hot-blooded man.