llenge was withdrawn. The
crowd was ardent for the fight, and Tiltock, who was punctilious about
honor, particularly where he could cut a safe figure, repelled the
compromise, as "unwarranted by the code." He knew as much about the
code as about honor, and more about both than about getting a living.

"Then," said the lieutenant, "I am authorized to say that my principal
will take Mr. Utie's first fire. Let him improve the generous chance
as he will. The second time we will make business of it."

The interlopers fell back. The word was given: "Ready--Aim--Fire!"
Robert Utie, sustained by braggadocio, that quality which makes
murderers die on the scaffold heroically, fired full at the body of
Lieutenant Dibdo. That officer fired into the air and remained unmoved
and unharmed.

"Is another shot demanded?"

"Yes," said Tiltock, "our honor is not yet satisfied."

He waved the crowd back in an imperious way--they having rushed in
after the first shot--and he gave the word himself like a dramatic
reading.

Robert Utie looked, and this time with a livid, sobered face, into the
open pistol of the man he had provoked, the professional officer of
death. The fine, cool face behind the pistol was concise, grave, and
eloquent now as a judge's pronouncing the last sentence of the law.
The next instant the boy was biting and clawing at the ground in
mortal agony. The impatient crowd rushed in. A faint voice was heard
to gasp for what some said was "water" and some thought was "mother."
Then a figure with a dissipated face a little dignified by death, and
with some of the softness of childhood glimmering in it, like the
bright footfall of the good angel whose mission was done and whose
flight was taken--this figure lay upon its back amongst the bushes,
under the sunshine, peeped at by distant hills, contemplated by idlers
as if it were the body of a slain game-chicken, and the drunken
"surgeon" was idiotically feeling for its heart.

"Gentlemen," said Tiltock with a flourish, "we are all witnesses that
every thing has been honorably conducted."

The city had its little talk. The newspapers in those days were models
of what is called high-toned journalism, and printed nothing on purely
personal matters like duels when requested to respect the feelings of
families. As if "the feelings of families" were not the main cause of
duels! There was a mother somewhere, still clinging with her prayers
to the footstool of God, hoping for