er and kick him. But that sort of thing--you did
enough. Who'd have thought? You young spitfire! Chantel took you on,
exactly as he wanted."

The fat sleeper continued to snore. Wutzler came slinking back from his
refuge in the shadows.

"It iss zo badt!" he whined, gulping nervously. "It iss zo badt!"

"Right you are," said Heywood. With arms folded, he eyed them sternly.
"It's bad. We might have known. If only I'd reached him first! By Jove,
you must let me fight that beast. Duels? The idiot, nobody fights duels
any more. I've always--His cuffs are always dirty, too, on the inside!"

Rudolph leaned back, like a man refreshed and comforted, but his laugh
was unsteady, and too boisterous.

"It is well," he bragged. "Pistol-bullets--they fly on the wings of
chance! No?--All is well."

"Pistols? My dear young gentleman," scoffed his friend, "there's not a
pair of matched pistols in the settlement. And if there were, Chantel
has the choice. He'll take swords."

He paused, in a silence that grew somewhat menacing. From a slit in the
wall the wheel of the punkah-thong whined insistently,--rise and fall,
rise and fall of peevish complaint, distressing as a brain-fever bird.

"Swords, of course," continued Heywood. "If only out of vanity.
Fencing,--oh, I hate the man, and the art's by-gone, if you like, but
he's a beautiful swordsman! Wonderful!"

Rudolph still lay back, but now with a singular calm.

"It's just as well," he declared quietly.

Heywood loosed a great breath, a sigh of vast relief.

"My word!" he cried, grinning. "So you're there, too, eh? You young
Sly-boots! If you're another expert--Bravo! We'll beat him at his own
game! Hoist with his own what-d'-ye-call-it! I'd give anything"--He
thumped the table, and pitched the cards broadcast, like an explosion of
confetti, in a little carnival of glee. "You old Sly-boots!--But are you
sure? He's quick as lightning."

"I am not afraid," replied Rudolph, modestly. He trained his young
moustache upward with steady fingers, and sat very quiet, thinking long
thoughts. A quaint smile played about his eyes.

"Good for you!" said Heywood. "Now let him come, as the Lord Mayor said
of the hare. What sport! With an even chance--And what a load off
one's mind!"

He moved away to the window, as though searching for air. Instead of
moonlight, without, there swam the blue mist of dawn.

"Not a word must ever reach old Gilly," he mused. "Do you hear, Nesbit?"

"If