ond, who had died
at Paris of a rapid decline shortly after returning to his home in that
city from the scene of the duel. The document was unfinished, having
been left incomplete at the very place where the reader would most wish
to find it continued. No reason could be discovered for this, and no
second manuscript bearing on the all-important subject had been found,
after the strictest search among the papers left by the deceased.

The document itself then followed.

It purported to be an agreement privately drawn up between Mr. Monkton's
second, Monsieur Foulon, and the Count St. Lo's second, Monsieur
Dalville, and contained a statement of all the arrangements for
conducting the duel. The paper was dated "Naples, February 22d," and was
divided into some seven or eight clauses. The first clause described
the origin and nature of the quarrel--a very disgraceful affair on both
sides, worth neither remembering nor repeating. The second clause stated
that, the challenged man having chosen the pistol as his weapon, and
the challenger (an excellent swordsman), having, on his side, thereupon
insisted that the duel should be fought in such a manner as to make
the first fire decisive in its results, the seconds, seeing that fatal
consequences must inevitably follow the hostile meeting, determined,
first of all, that the duel should be kept a profound secret from
everybody, and that the place where it was to be fought should not be
made known beforehand, even to the principals themselves. It was added
that this excess of precaution had been rendered absolutely necessary
in consequence of a recent address from the Pope to the ruling powers in
Italy commenting on the scandalous frequency of the practice of dueling,
and urgently desiring that the laws against duelists should be enforced
for the future with the utmost rigor.

The third clause detailed the manner in which it had been arranged that
the duel should be fought.

The pistols having been loaded by the seconds on the ground, the
combatants were to be placed thirty paces apart, and were to toss up for
the first fire. The man who won was to advance ten paces marked out for
him beforehand--and was then to discharge his pistol. If he missed, or
failed to disable his opponent, the latter was free to advance, if he
chose, the whole remaining twenty paces before he fired in his turn.
This arrangement insured the decisive termination of the duel at the
first discharge of the p