y's carelessness in not having a broken bell
mended on the instant. But the corporal on guard opened to him; so the
bell was all right, and the sound must have escaped him. He stumbled
over the threshold.

The corporal gazed after him in astonishment. Was the sergeant-major
asleep or awake? He had staggered past with wide-open, staring eyes,
like a sleep-walker. Perhaps he was simply drunk.

In the passage Heimert came to meet him. He looked distraught, as
though just awakened out of sleep. He beckoned Heppner into the
kitchen. Heppner entered and shut the door behind him. The light
blinded him; he blinked stupidly, and thought he saw in the lamp-light
two shining revolvers lying on the table.

"You kissed my wife yesterday," said Heimert, in a half whisper. "Isn't
that so?"

Heppner nodded. "Yes, yes." What had the silly fellow got in his head?
Of course he had kissed the woman; and he meant to do it again, and
again too.

"And so you have got to fight it out with me," continued the other.
"Man against man. Are you agreed?"

Again the sergeant-major nodded stolidly. Why not? Their betters acted
thus.

"Shall we settle the thing now at once?"

Heppner nodded for the third time. It was all one to him, so long as he
could get to rest at last.

Heimert took up the two revolvers in one of his big hands; with the
other he pointed over his shoulder out of the window.

"We'll go up there," he said. "There's plenty of room there. And we'll
take our own two revolvers with us. Look here! I will load them, each
with one cartridge."

Under Heppner's eyes he placed the cartridges in the chambers of the
revolvers, the shining brass gleaming beside the dull steel. He
gripped the pistols by the barrel, and held out the butt-ends to the
sergeant-major.

"Now choose," he said.

Heppner languidly took with his right hand the revolver which the other
was holding in his left. Heimert held the remaining pistol in the lamp
light, and read off the number.

"I have got yours," he said, "and you have mine. And now we'll wait
till the sentry has gone round the corner."

He leant out of the window cautiously, and took a look round. The moon
was in the zenith; houses, trees, and bushes cast but short shadows.
The sentinel was strolling along by the hedge of the jumping-ground.
His sword was in the scabbard, and he had buried his hands deep in his
breeches-pockets. Every now and then the lubberly fellow would whistle
a stave, o