or, and a more contemptuous
disdain for my life, than the aforesaid Seth. He advanced full one
hundred reasons for a deadly combat, the results of which, he confessed,
were speculative matters of a most dreamy indifference. Now, although it
has almost become an axiom in these affairs that there is nothing like a
bold, decided friend, yet even these qualities may be carried to excess;
and so I began to experience.

There was a vindictiveness in the way he expatiated upon the gross
character of the insult I had received, the palpable openness of the
outrage, that showed the liveliest susceptibility on the score of my
reputation; and thus it came to pass, I suppose, from that spirit of
divergence and contradiction so native to the human heart that the
stronger Seth's argument ran in favor of a most bloody retribution, the
more ingenious grew my casuistry on the side of mercy; till, grown weary
of my sophistry, he finished the discussion by saying: "Take your own
road, then; and if you prefer a stiletto under the ribs to the chance of
a sabre-cut, it is your own affair, not mine."

"How so? Why should I have to fear such?"

"You don't think that the villano will suffer a fellow to take his
muchacha from him, and dance with her the entire evening before a whole
company, without his revenge? No! no! they have different notions on
that score, as you 'll soon learn."

"Then what is to be done?"

"I have told you already, and I tell you once more: meet him
to-morrow,--the time is not very distant now. You tell me that you are
a fair swordsman: now, these chaps have but one attack and one guard.
I 'll put you up to both; and if you are content to take a slight
sabre-cut about the left shoulder, I'll show you how to run him through
the body."

"And then?"

"Why, then," said he, turning his tobacco about in his mouth, "I guess
you'd better run for it; there'll be no time to lose. Mount your beast,
and ride for the Guajuaqualla road, but don't follow it long, or you'll
soon be overtaken. Turn the beast loose, and take to the mountains,
where, when you 've struck the miner's track, you 'll soon reach the
town in safety."

Overborne by arguments and reasons, many of which Seth strengthened
by the pithy apothegm of "Bethink ye where ye are, boy! This is not
England, nor Ireland neither!" all my scruples vanished, and I set about
the various arrangements in a spirit of true activity. The time was
brief, since, besides taking