ard from the shore, hard to discover. But
on the northward side the cliffs suddenly dropped, and in the deft was a
thick plantation of aloes, through which a winding path led down to the
beach.

Perhaps of all the little group gathered down there to witness and take
part in the coming tragedy, Signor Pruccio, Lord St. Maurice's second,
was looking the most disturbed and anxious. His man, he knew, must fall,
and an ugly sickening dread was in his heart. It was so like a murder.
He pictured to himself that fair boyish face--and in the clear morning
sunlight the young Englishman's face showed marvelously few signs of the
night of agony through which he had passed--ghastly and livid, with the
stamp of death upon the forehead, and the deep blue eyes glazed and
dull. It was an awful thing, yet what could he do? What hope was there?
Leonardo di Marioni he knew to be a famous swordsman; Lord St. Maurice
had never fenced since he had left Eton, and scarcely remembered the
positions. It was doubtful even whether he had ever held a rapier. But
what Signor Pruccio feared most was the pale, unflinching hate in the
Sicilian's white face. He loathed it, and yet it fascinated him. He
knew, alas! how easily, by one swift turn of the wrist, he would be able
to pass his sword through the Englishman's body, mocking at his
unskilled defense. He fancied that he could see the arms thrown up to
heaven, the fixed, wild eyes, the red blood spurting out from the wound
and staining the virgin earth; almost he fancied that he could hear the
death-cry break from those agonized white lips. Horrible effort of the
imagination! What evil chance had made him offer his services to this
young English lord, and dragged him into assisting at a duel which could
be but a farce--worse than a farce, a murder? He would have given half
his fortune for an earthquake to have come and swallowed up that
merciless Sicilian.

A few yards away Martin Briscoe was standing with his second. He and
Lord St. Maurice, at this tragical moment of their lives, had been
nearer a quarrel than ever before. Briscoe, with some justice, had
claimed priority with the Sicilian, and had maintained his right in the
face of Lord St. Maurice's opposition. But the Sicilian had stepped in,
and insisted upon his privilege to decide for himself whom he should
first meet. The times had been distinctly stated, he reminded them, six
o'clock by Lord St. Maurice's second, and half-past six by Mr.
B