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Calmly, but with a
heavy heart, I answered:
"I wish not to find offense in your words, my friend, for in some
good days gone you and I had good acquaintance, and I can not forget
that the last hours of a light imprisonment before I entered on a
dark one were spent in the home of your father--of the brave
Seigneur whose life I once saved."
I am sure I should not have mentioned this in any other
situation--it seemed as if I were throwing myself on his mercy;
but yet I felt it was the only thing to do--that I must bridge
this affair, if at cost of some reputation.
It was not to be. Here Doltaire, seeing that my words had indeed
affected my opponent, said: "A double retreat! He swore to give a
challenge to-night, and he cries off like a sheep from a porcupine;
his courage is so slack, he dares not move a step to his liberty.
It was a bet, a hazard. He was to drink glass for glass with any
and all of us, and fight sword for sword with any of us who gave
him cause. Having drunk his courage to death, he'd now browse at
the feet of those who give him chance to win his stake.


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