t."

"I shall fight, sir."

"No you won't."

"Captain," then said J.T. Maston heartily, "I am the president's friend,
his _alter ego_; if you must absolutely kill some one kill me; that will
be exactly the same thing."

"Sir," said Nicholl, convulsively seizing his rifle, "this joking--"

"Friend Maston is not joking," answered Michel Ardan, "and I understand
his wanting to be killed for the man he loves; but neither he nor
Barbicane will fall under Captain Nicholl's bullets, for I have so
tempting a proposition to make to the two rivals that they will hasten
to accept it."

"But what is it, pray?" asked Nicholl, with visible incredulity.

"Patience," answered Ardan; "I can only communicate it in Barbicane's
presence."

"Let us look for him, then," cried the captain.

The three men immediately set out; the captain, having discharged his
rifle, threw it on his shoulder and walked on in silence.

During another half-hour the search was in vain. Maston was seized with
a sinister presentiment. He observed Captain Nicholl closely, asking
himself if, once the captain's vengeance satisfied, the unfortunate
Barbicane had not been left lying in some bloody thicket. Michel Ardan
seemed to have the same thought, and they were both looking
questioningly at Captain Nicholl when Maston suddenly stopped.

The motionless bust of a man leaning against a gigantic catalpa appeared
twenty feet off half hidden in the grass.

"It is he!" said Maston.

Barbicane did not move. Ardan stared at the captain, but he did not
wince. Ardan rushed forward, crying--

"Barbicane! Barbicane!"

No answer. Ardan was about to seize his arm; he stopped short, uttering
a cry of surprise.

Barbicane, with a pencil in his hand, was tracing geometrical figures
upon a memorandum-book, whilst his unloaded gun lay on the ground.

Absorbed in his work, the _savant_, forgetting in his turn his duel and
his vengeance, had neither seen nor heard anything.

But when Michel Ardan placed his hand on that of the president, he got
up and looked at him with astonishment.

"Ah!" cried he at last; "you here! I have found it, my friend, I have
found it!"

"What?"

"The way to do it."

"The way to do what?"

"To counteract the effect of the shock at the departure of the
projectile."

"Really?" said Michel, looking at the captain out of the corner of his
eye.

"Yes, water! simply water, which will act as a spring. Ah, Maston!"
cried Barbicane,