"Nicholl!" said Michel Ardan, "this is not courteous! we ought
always to treat an adversary with respect; rest assureed if
Barbicane is still alive we shall find him all the more easily;
because if he has not, like you, been amusing himself with
freeing oppressed birds, he must be looking for _you_. When we
have found him, Michel Ardan tells you this, there will be no
duel between you."

"Between President Barbicane and myself," gravely replied
Nicholl, "there is a rivalry which the death of one of us----"

"Pooh, pooh!" said Ardan. "Brave fellows like you indeed! you
shall not fight!"

"I will fight, sir!"

"No!"

"Captain," said J. T. Maston, with much feeling, "I am a friend
of the president's, his _alter ego_, his second self; if you
really must kill some one, _shoot me!_ it will do just as well!"

"Sir," Nicholl replied, seizing his rifle convulsively, "these
jokes----"

"Our friend Maston is not joking," replied Ardan. "I fully
understand his idea of being killed himself in order to save
his friend. But neither he nor Barbicane will fall before the balls
of Captain Nicholl. Indeed I have so attractive a proposal to
make to the two rivals, that both will be eager to accept it."