t wine
he drank at dinner was too much for him.' Good again! It was the wine!
'But,' thought I, 'as soon as this arm shall be able to strike or
thrust, I will have the life of that sneering devil, or he mine.' And I
kept my word. I met him within ten days afterward, walking at some
distance from the camp, quite alone, as I was myself.

'Good morning,' said he; 'you are about again, as I am glad to see.'

I said to him, 'Do you forget the time when I was out before?'

'Surely not,' said he; 'but I knew that you had been ill, and was not
master of yourself.'

'And so forgave me?' I rejoined, in a passion.

'And so forgave,' said he; 'why not?'

'Then learn,' said I, 'that I _was_ master of myself; that I am now;
that you insulted me grossly; that the only words I have for you
are--draw, sir, draw!'

'Stop!' he cried, as I drew my sword; 'pray come back with me to the
camp. You are ill; pray, come back; I have no quarrel with you, believe
me.'

But I struck him on the breast with my swordhilt, so that he nearly
fell. Then he recovered himself, and, still crying out that he had no
quarrel with me, drew and stood upon his guard, while I rushed upon him.

He was cool, and I furious. I believe he could have killed me easily if
he had wished, but he only parried my rapid blows. At last, however, as
I pressed him more closely, he grew paler, and began to fight in
earnest. What _then_ could he do against a madman? I bore him back, step
by step, till a mass of rock stopped him; and there I kept him, with the
hissing steel playing about his head, until he dropped upon one knee and
his sword fell from his hand. Then I paused, waiting to see him die as I
would a wounded hare, as die I knew he must, for I had pierced him with
twenty wounds. He knelt thus, and looked, not at me, but at the setting
sun; and then his head drooped and he rolled over, and was dead.

And as I wiped my sword on the grass, I shouted with glee.

Of course, I told no one. It was but another secret added to the many
that had torn my heart and brain. Nor, when the body was found, stripped
by camp followers, and supposed to be killed by a reconnoitring party of
the enemy, did I betray myself by word or look.

At last the war was over, and we were ordered home. I bade farewell to
the blue hills of the Crimea with secret joy, and as the shore faded
from my sight, the memory of all that had happened to me during the
Great Siege faded from my memory like