irst time with true spontaneity. The
intrinsic ridiculousness of the situation was too much for his sense of
humour. He made as if to repeat the blow, but Tudor, white of face, with
arms hanging resistlessly at his sides, offered no defence.

"I don't mean a fight with fists," he said slowly. "I mean to a finish,
to the death. You're a good shot with revolver and rifle. So am I.
That's the way we'll settle it."

"You have gone clean mad. You are a lunatic."

"No, I'm not," Tudor retorted. "I'm a man in love. And once again I ask
you to go outside and settle it, with any weapons you choose."

Sheldon regarded him for the first time with genuine seriousness,
wondering what strange maggots could be gnawing in his brain to drive him
to such unusual conduct.

"But men don't act this way in real life," Sheldon remarked.

"You'll find I'm pretty real before you're done with me. I'm going to
kill you to-day."

"Bosh and nonsense, man." This time Sheldon had lost his temper over the
superficial aspects of the situation. "Bosh and nonsense, that's all it
is. Men don't fight duels in the twentieth century. It's--it's
antediluvian, I tell you."

"Speaking of Joan--"

"Please keep her name out of it," Sheldon warned him.

"I will, if you'll fight."

Sheldon threw up his arms despairingly.

"Speaking of Joan--"

"Look out," Sheldon warned again.

"Oh, go ahead, knock me down. But that won't close my mouth. You can
knock me down all day, but as fast as I get to my feet I'll speak of Joan
again. Now will you fight?"

"Listen to me, Tudor," Sheldon began, with an effort at decisiveness. "I
am not used to taking from men a tithe of what I've already taken from
you."

"You'll take a lot more before the day's out," was the answer. "I tell
you, you simply must fight. I'll give you a fair chance to kill me, but
I'll kill you before the day's out. This isn't civilization. It's the
Solomon Islands, and a pretty primitive proposition for all that. King
Edward and law and order are represented by the Commissioner at Tulagi
and an occasional visiting gunboat. And two men and one woman is an
equally primitive proposition. We'll settle it in the good old primitive
way."

As Sheldon looked at him the thought came to his mind that after all
there might be something in the other's wild adventures over the earth.
It required a man of that calibre, a man capable of obtruding a duel into
orderly twentieth ce