d pedal.

He was well on his way before his mind cleared enough for him to think
what he was doing; and then his heart sank; he could do nothing. He
could not interrupt a duel; that was the last enormity. And if he did
interrupt it, it would be but for a few minutes; it would take place
all the same. As the sense of his helplessness filled him, two or
three great tears forced themselves out of his eyes. He dashed them
away with a most unangelic savageness; then, conscious only of a
devouring desire to be near his father in his perilous hour, he drove
on the machine as hard as he could.

The Corniche is a good road, but all up hill and down dale; and he knew
how much more time he lost by jumping off and running his bicycle up a
hill than he made by letting it rip down the descent. As he drew near
Monaco a kind of hopelessness settled on him. He almost wished, since
he could not stop it, that he might find the duel over. Now and again
a dry sob burst from his overloaded bosom.

It was ten minutes to eight when he came up the slope from the
Condamine. His legs were leaden, but they drove on the machine. At
last he came to the path which leads to the half glade, half rocky
amphitheatre, in which the gentry of the principality, and of the rest
of the world who chance to be visiting it, settle their affairs of
honour, slipped off his machine, and ran down it as fast as his stiff
legs would carry him. A few yards from the end of it he turned aside
into the bushes, came to the edge of the glade, saw his father and
Count Sigismond facing one another some forty yards away; saw a white
handkerchief raised in Lord Crosland's hand, and in spite of himself,
his pent-up emotion burst from him in one wild eldritch yell.

It still rang on the quivering air when the handkerchief fluttered to
the ground, and the pistols flashed together.

Now to those who enjoy an intimacy with Tinker, an eldritch yell is
neither here nor there. Piercing as this one was, it barely reached
Sir Tancred's consciousness; but it smote sharply on Count Sigismond's
tense nerves, and deflected the barrel of his pistol just so much as
sent the bullet zip past Sir Tancred's ear, as he received Sir
Tancred's bullet in his elbow, and started to traverse the glade in a
series of violent but ungainly leaps, uttering squeal on squeal.

Tinker turned and bolted, sobbing, gasping, and choking in the
revulsion from his hopeless dread. He seized his bicycl