We went on playing. My luck deserted me; I lost, and lost, and lost
again. From time to time I looked round at the card table. The "deal"
had fallen early to the General, and it seemed to be indefinitely
prolonged. A heap of notes and gold (won mainly from Romayne, as I
afterward discovered) lay before him. As for my neighbor, the unhappy
possessor of the bottles of blacking, the pictures by unknown masters,
and the rest of it, he won, and then rashly presumed on his good
fortune. Deprived of his last farthing, he retired into a corner of the
room, and consoled himself with a cigar. I had just arisen, to follow
his example, when a furious uproar burst out at the card table.

I saw Romayne spring up, and snatch the cards out of the General's hand.
"You scoundrel!" he shouted, "you are cheating!" The General started to
his feet in a fury. "You lie!" he cried. I attempted to interfere,
but Romayne had already seen the necessity of controlling himself. "A
gentleman doesn't accept an insult from a swindler," he said, coolly.
"Accept this, then!" the General answered--and spat on him. In an
instant Romayne knocked him down.

The blow was dealt straight between his eyes: he was a gross big-boned
man, and he fell heavily. For the time he was stunned. The women ran,
screaming, out of the room. The peaceable Commander trembled from head
to foot. Two of the men present, who, to give them their due, were
no cowards, locked the doors. "You don't go," they said, "till we see
whether he recovers or not." Cold water, assisted by the landlady's
smelling salts, brought the General to his senses after a while. He
whispered something to one of his friends, who immediately turned to me.
"The General challenges Mr. Romayne," he said. "As one of his seconds,
I demand an appointment for to-morrow morning." I refused to make any