away. Obviously it was impossible to run from a man with a sword, and as
to fighting him, it seemed completely out of the question.

He waited awhile, then said exactly what was in his heart:

"Drop this; I won't fight you now. I won't be made ridiculous."

"Ah, you won't!" hissed the Gascon. "I suppose you prefer to be made
infamous. Do you hear what I say?... Infamous! Infamous! Infamous!" he
shrieked, raising and falling on his toes and getting very red in the
face. Lieutenant D'Hubert, on the contrary, became very pale at the
sound of the unsavoury word, then flushed pink to the roots of his fair
hair.

"But you can't go out to fight; you are under arrest, you lunatic," he
objected, with angry scorn.

"There's the garden. It's big enough to lay out your long carcass in,"
spluttered out Lieutenant Feraud with such ardour that somehow the anger
of the cooler man subsided.

"This is perfectly absurd," he said, glad enough to think he had found a
way out of it for the moment. "We will never get any of our comrades to
serve as seconds. It's preposterous."

"Seconds! Damn the seconds! We don't want any seconds. Don't you worry
about any seconds. I will send word to your friends to come and bury
you when I am done. This is no time for ceremonies. And if you want
any witnesses, I'll send word to the old girl to put her head out of a
window at the back. Stay! There's the gardener. He'll do. He's as deaf