“Why bother about ground, measurements, and so on?  Let us simplify matters.  Load the two pairs of pistols.  I will take those of General Feraud, and let him take mine.  Or, better still, let us take a mixed pair.  One of each pair.  Then let us go into the wood and shoot at sight, while you remain outside.  We did not come here for ceremonies, but for war—­war to the death.  Any ground is good enough for that.  If I fall, you must leave me where I lie and clear out.  It wouldn’t be healthy for you to be found hanging about here after that.”

It appeared after a short parley that General Feraud was willing to accept these conditions.  While the seconds were loading the pistols, he could be heard whistling, and was seen to rub his hands with perfect contentment.  He flung off his coat briskly, and General D ’Hubert took off his own and folded it carefully on a stone.

“Suppose you take your principal to the other side of the wood and let him enter exactly in ten minutes from now,” suggested General D’Hubert, calmly, but feeling as if he were giving directions for his own execution.  This, however, was his last moment of weakness.  “Wait.  Let us compare watches first.”

He pulled out his own.  The officer with the chipped nose went over to borrow the watch of General Feraud.  They bent their heads over them for a time.

“That’s it.  At four minutes to six by yours.  Seven to by mine.”

It was the cuirassier who remained by the side of General D’Hubert, keeping his one eye fixed immovably on the white face of the watch he held in the palm of his hand.  He opened his mouth, waiting for the beat of the last second long before he snapped out the word, “Avancez.”

General D’Hubert moved on, passing from the glaring sunshine of the Provencal morning into the cool and aromatic shade of the pines.  The ground was clear between the reddish trunks, whose multitude, leaning at slightly different angles, confused his eye at first.  It was like going into battle.  The commanding quality of confidence in himself woke up in his breast.  He was all to his affair.  The problem was how to kill the adversary.  Nothing short of that would free him from this imbecile nightmare.  “It’s no use wounding that brute,” thought General D’Hubert.  He was known as a resourceful officer.  His comrades years ago used also to call him The Strategist.  And it was a fact that he could think in the presence of the enemy.  Whereas Feraud had been always a mere fighter—­but a dead shot, unluckily.

“I must draw his fire at the greatest possible range,” said General D’Hubert to himself.

At that moment he saw something white moving far off between the trees—­the shirt of his adversary.  He stepped out at once between the trunks, exposing himself freely; then, quick as lightning, leaped back.  It had been a risky move but it succeeded in its object.  Almost simultaneously with the pop of a shot a small piece of bark chipped off by the bullet stung his ear painfully.