"Good Lord!" said I, "that it should have come to this—him risking his life with pistols, and all for a woman who sent him her picture in a locket. And what if he's shot—what then, Bigg? You're not likely to tumble into a place like this for many a year; and you'd miss him, that you can't deny. Again, suppose he isn't shot, but kills the man? Where do you stand then? In Queer Street, I fancy, and the sooner you're out of Paris the better."
This is what I thought as I ran along to Mr. Ames'. If we shot our man, there'd be a hullaballoo which must be heard in London; and then who could tell where we might find ourselves? And what would the woman whom all the fuss was about do? She couldn't well stand by a man who had shot her own brother. Please God, we'll only wound him, thought I, and get away to Trouville while he's in the doctor's hands.
I found Mr. Ames dressed in a shabby old coat and standing before a big picture. He heard what I'd got to tell him before lie took his pipe from his mouth, and seemed to take it very serious.
"I'm coming along with you now," said he; and then he asked me a minute after, "Does he know any thing about pistols?"
"The devil a bit, sir," said I; "he can't abide 'em."
"And he's worse than a cow with a sword," said he next.
"Never had one in his hand that I know of, sir," I answered.
"Well," said he, "it's a bad job, and if he's alive this time to-morrow, he's a lucky man. Help me on with my coat, will you, now?"
I did as he asked me and we hurried back to the Hôtel de Lille. Sir Nicolas was pacing up and down the courtyard, and directly he caught sight of Mr. Ames, he began to talk to him.
"Jack," cried he, "ye've heard the news that I'm to go out with him?"
"Truth, I have; and a pretty mess you seem to have made of it."
"Mess, d'ye call it? Didn't he come here and strike me in the face? 'Tis lucky for him that I forgot to twist his neck."
"Then there's no question of apology?"
"Be hanged to your apology! Is it a coward ye think I am—me that would fight any man in France?"
"But what will Carlotta say?"
"What can she say, when it's for her that I'm meeting him? Wasn't it he who prevented her coming last night? Wasn't he the man who stopped her when she was to meet me at the Café de Paris? The devil take your apologies!"
"Then I'm to call on him?"
"Certainly ye are, and to have Rudolphe Marcel with you. There's no other that I know who would do it for me."
"He has the right of weapons," said Mr. Ames here.
"And don't I know it? What's it to me whether he's the right of weapons? Won't I kill him any way?"
Mr. Ames shook his head, and the two went off, walking arm and arm, to the house of Rudolphe Marcel. I saw them next at seven o'clock, when they were all dining at the Café Rouge, but Sir Nicolas never came home until midnight, and then he was more like a beaten child than a man.
"Hildebrand, Hildebrand," said he, "ye'll be burying me to-morrow, for sure. I'm to fight at dawn."
"Is that so, sir?" said I. "Well, sorry I am to hear it. There was never any good done yet in this world by blowing a man's brains out, and there won't be, I make sure. I wouldn't fight, if I were you, sir."
"Wouldn't fight—hark at him!" cried he. "Wouldn't fight—me that is the ninth baronet with forefathers big in history! Is it the chicken of the family I'm to be? What would she say of me if I refused him? No; by Heaven, I'll cut his throat."
"He hasn't chosen pistols, then, sir?" I asked next.
"Indeed, and he has."
I didn't want to hear this, for a duel with pistols looked like to be the death of one of them. But before I could say any thing he was rambling on again.
"If it pleases God that I'm killed," said he, "you will send the letter that I'm writing to the Baroness de Moncy at the Hôtel Chatam. My clothes you may keep, Hildebrand. Ye've been a good man to me, and I'll not forget to say so on paper."
"I do hope it won't be as bad as that, sir," said I.
"’Tis as God wishes," replied he, pious like, "and I don't forget I was born a Catholic, though I'm no credit to my religion."
"May I ask where you're to meet him, sir?" said I, trying to turn him from thinking of it.
"In the garden of a house at Vincennes, at six o'clock," he answered. "We'll be private there, and no police to interrupt. You'll not forget to wake me at five?"
I promised that I would not, and he sat down to his desk in his shirt-sleeves and wrote two letters. One he addressed to the Baroness de Moncy; the other was a character for me, and I couldn't have had a better one, not if I'd been the angel Gabriel. It made me queer to read it though, for all said and done I liked Nicky Steele; and there's few men in this world that ever I did like. But that wasn't the place to say so, and as the night went on, I had just as much as I could do to manage him. He'd been drinking cognac, you see, and there was a time, about four in the morning, when his courage left him, and he broke down like a woman.
"Hildebrand, Hildebrand," he wailed, lying on his bed, with his clothes on, "where will I be this time to-morrow? What's to become of me immortal soul? Is there no one that will bring a priest to me? Am I to die without a friend in the world—not a friend, by Heaven!—me that was born a Catholic?"
He went on like this for a good half hour; but I gave him some more drink, and about half -past four he began to doze. As for myself, I never closed my eyes, but sat there beside him, while the cold white dawn came creeping along the streets, and Paris bestirred herself to begin another day.
"Good Lord!" said I, looking down on his pale face, "to think that this time to-morrow your body may lie under the ground, and I may be loose on the road of life again, and all for the shadow of a woman who may mean nothing at all, and whom, like enough, you may never see again. Well, well! we've seen some queer times together, Sir Nicolas Steele, that we have; good times and bad times, days when we've not known where our dinner was coming from, and days when we could have taken a bath in the guineas. And now, it's come to this, that you're making yourself a pot-shot for a bit of a French chap I wouldn't soil my boots with. Did any one ever match that?"
All this was bothering me, I needn't tell, while I sat and watched him during the half-hour he slept. When I awoke him at last he seemed all the better for his doze, and was quite cool and collected, dressing himself up as smart as if he was going to Longchamps or Auteuil.
"Hildebrand," said he, "what bit of money I have is banked with Hébraie, as you know. It 'll serve to pay up here if any thing happens to me. All the little things are for you."
"Don't you think of that, sir," said I. "Just you keep your nerve, and shoot straight. I don't doubt you can hold a pistol as well as he can, if it comes to that."
"My fathers could, any way," he exclaimed, drinking up the coffee I'd brought him. "Is the cab at the door yet?"
"It's just driving up, sir," said I.
The cab, in which were Mr. Ames and Mr. Marcel, drove up while I talked to him; and they came bustling out and insisted on taking a liqueur together before leaving. I thought they both seemed in mighty good spirits, seeing what they were after; and Sir Nicolas thought so too.
"Well, boys," said he, "it's gay ye are, I must say. Did ye buy the pistols, Jack?"
"No need to do that," says Mr. Ames. "I brought a case of my own. And as for being gay, Nicky, you'll be shouting loud enough in half an hour, you mark my words."
"I have my doubts," says he, quite gloomy like; and then out they all went, while I climbed on the box, and we drove away toward the old Pont Bercy.
There weren't many people about the streets, for most of the working folk had gone already to business; but the air was crisp and sharp, like it is in early