our foxing--if you won't play like a man, you may die like a
dog." I think 'twas them words ruined him; the chamber-maid heard them
outside; and he struck Mr. Beauclerc half-a-dozen blows with the side of
the small-sword across the body, here and there, quite unsteady; and
"Hold, my lord, you've hurt him," cries Mr. Archer, as loud as he could
cry. "Put up your sword for Heaven's sake," and he makes a sort of
scuffle with my lord, in a friendly way, to disarm him, and push him
away, and "Throw down the coverlet and see where he's wounded," says he
to me; and so I did, and there was a great pool of blood--_we_ knew all
about that--and my lord looked shocked when he seen it. "I did not mean
that," says my lord; "but," says he, with a sulky curse, "he's well
served."

'I don't know whether Glascock was in the room or not all this while,
maybe he was; at any rate, he swore to it afterwards; but you've read
the trial, I warrant. The room was soon full of people. The dead man was
still warm--'twas well for us. So they raised him up; and one was for
trying one thing, and another; and my lord was sitting stupid-like all
this time by the wall; and up he gets, and says he, "I hope he's not
dead, but if he be, upon my honour, 'tis an accident--no more. I call
Heaven to witness, and the persons who are now present; and pledge my
sacred honour, as a peer, I meant no more than a blow or two."

"You hear, gentlemen, what my lord says, he meant only a blow or two,
and not to take his life," cries Mr. Archer.

'So my lord repeats it again, cursing and swearing, like St. Peter in
the judgment hall.

'So, as nobody was meddling with my lord, out he goes, intending, I
suppose, to get away altogether, if he could. But Mr. Underwood missed
him, and he says, "Gentlemen, where's my Lord Dunoran? we must not
suffer him to depart;" and he followed him--two or three others going
along with him, and they met him with his hat and cloak on, in the
lobby, and he says, stepping between him and the stairs,--

'"My lord, you must not go, until we see how this matter ends."

'"Twill end well enough," says he, and without more ado he walks back
again.

'So you know the rest--_how_ that business ended, at least for him.'

'And you are that very Zekiel Irons who was a witness on the trial?'
said Mervyn, with a peculiar look of fear and loathing fixed on him.

'The same,' said Irons, doggedly; and after a pause, 'but I swore to
very little; and all