Early in the next round the White Corps student got an ugly wound on the side of his head and gave his opponent one like it.  In the third round the latter received another bad wound in the head, and the former had his under-lip divided.  After that, the White Corps student gave many severe wounds, but got none of the consequence in return.  At the end of five minutes from the beginning of the duel the surgeon stopped it; the challenging party had suffered such injuries that any addition to them might be dangerous.  These injuries were a fearful spectacle, but are better left undescribed.  So, against expectation, my acquaintance was the victor.

CHAPTER VI [A Sport that Sometimes Kills]

The third duel was brief and bloody.  The surgeon stopped it when he saw that one of the men had received such bad wounds that he could not fight longer without endangering his life.

The fourth duel was a tremendous encounter; but at the end of five or six minutes the surgeon interfered once more:  another man so severely hurt as to render it unsafe to add to his harms.  I watched this engagement as I watched the others—­with rapt interest and strong excitement, and with a shrink and a shudder for every blow that laid open a cheek or a forehead; and a conscious paling of my face when I occasionally saw a wound of a yet more shocking nature inflicted.  My eyes were upon the loser of this duel when he got his last and vanquishing wound—­it was in his face and it carried away his—­but no matter, I must not enter into details.  I had but a glance, and then turned quickly, but I would not have been looking at all if I had known what was coming.  No, that is probably not true; one thinks he would not look if he knew what was coming, but the interest and the excitement are so powerful that they would doubtless conquer all other feelings; and so, under the fierce exhilaration of the clashing steel, he would yield and look after all.  Sometimes spectators of these duels faint—­and it does seem a very reasonable thing to do, too.

Both parties to this fourth duel were badly hurt so much that the surgeon was at work upon them nearly or quite an hour—­a fact which is suggestive.  But this waiting interval was not wasted in idleness by the assembled students.  It was past noon, therefore they ordered their landlord, downstairs, to send up hot beefsteaks, chickens, and such things, and these they ate, sitting comfortable at the several tables, whilst they chatted, disputed and laughed.  The door to the surgeon’s room stood open, meantime, but the cutting, sewing, splicing, and bandaging going on in there in plain view did not seem to disturb anyone’s appetite.  I went in and saw the surgeon labor awhile, but could not enjoy; it was much less trying to see the wounds given and received than to see them mended; the stir and turmoil, and the music of the steel, were wanting here—­one’s nerves were wrung by this grisly spectacle, whilst the duel’s compensating pleasurable thrill was lacking.