with relief at the thought that the next few hours might make them
unnecessary. So also was the sudden realization that Santa Inez was
before him, when he had thought he was not yet halfway there, and as
he dismounted before the Court House his singular feeling--followed,
however, by no fear or distress--was that he had come so early to the
rendezvous that he was not yet quite prepared for it.
This same sense of unreality pervaded his meeting with the deputy
sheriff, at the news that the Federal judge had, as was expected,
dismissed the prisoners on their own recognizances, and that Captain
Pinckney was at the hotel at breakfast. In the like abstracted manner he
replied to the one or two questions of the deputy, exhibited the pistols
he had brought with him, and finally accompanied him to a little meadow
hidden by trees, below the hotel, where the other principal and his
seconds were awaiting them. And here he awoke--clear-eyed, keen,
forceful, and intense!
So stimulated were his faculties that his sense of hearing in its
acuteness took in every word of the conversation between the seconds,
a few paces distant. He heard his adversary's seconds say carelessly
to the deputy sheriff, "I presume this is a case where there will be no
apology or mediation," and the deputy's reply, "I reckon my man means
business, but he seems a little queer." He heard the other second laugh,
and say lightly, "They're apt to be so when it's their first time out,"
followed by the more anxious aside of the other second as the deputy
turned away,--"Yes, but by G-d I don't like his looks!" His sense of
sight was also so acute that having lost the choice of position, when
the coin was tossed, and being turned with his face to the sun, even
through the glare he saw, with unerring distinctness of outline, the
black-coated figure of his opponent moved into range--saw the perfect
outline of his features, and how the easy, supercilious smile, as he
threw away his cigar, appeared to drop out of his face with a kind of
vacant awe as he faced him. He felt his nerves become as steel as the
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