"A prisoner!" cried Septimius, that Indian fierceness that was in him
arousing itself, and thrusting up its malign head like a snake. "Never! If
you would have me, you must take my dead body."

"Ah well, you have pluck in you, I see, only it needs a considerable
stirring. Come, this is a good quarrel of ours. Let us fight it out. Stand
where you are, and I will give the word of command. Now; ready, aim,
fire!"

As the young officer spoke the three last words, in rapid succession, he
and his antagonist brought their firelocks to the shoulder, aimed and
fired. Septimius felt, as it were, the sting of a gadfly passing across
his temple, as the Englishman's bullet grazed it; but, to his surprise and
horror (for the whole thing scarcely seemed real to him), he saw the
officer give a great start, drop his fusil, and stagger against a tree,
with his hand to his breast. He endeavored to support himself erect, but,
failing in the effort, beckoned to Septimius.

"Come, my good friend," said he, with that playful, petulant smile flitting
over his face again. "It is my first and last fight. Let me down as softly
as you can on mother earth, the mother of both you and me; so we are
brothers; and this may be a brotherly act, though it does not look so, nor
feel so. Ah! that was a twinge indeed!"

"Good God!" exclaimed Septimius. "I had no thought of this, no malice
towards you in the least!"

"Nor I towards you," said the young man. "It was boy's play, and the end of
it is that I die a boy, instead of living forever, as perhaps I otherwise