CHAPTER VI. THE AMAZING DUEL
A deputation came in the evening and conferred upon Wilson the welcome honor of a nomination for mayor; for the village has just been converted into a city by charter. Tom skulks out of challenging the twins. Judge Driscoll thereupon challenges Angelo (accused by Tom of doing the kicking); he declines, but Luigi accepts in his place against Angelo’s timid protest.
It was late Saturday night nearing eleven.
The judge and his second found the rest of the war party at the further end of the vacant ground, near the haunted house. Pudd’nhead Wilson advanced to meet them, and said anxiously:
“I must say a word in behalf of my principal’s proxy, Count Luigi, to whom you have kindly granted the privilege of fighting my principal’s battle for him. It is growing late, and Count Luigi is in great trouble lest midnight shall strike before the finish.”
“It is another testimony,” said Howard, approvingly. “That young man is fine all through. He wishes to save his brother the sorrow of fighting on the Sabbath, and he is right; it is the right and manly feeling and does him credit. We will make all possible haste.”
Wilson said: “There is also another reason – a consideration, in fact, which deeply concerns Count Luigi himself. These twins have command of their mutual legs turn about. Count Luigi is in command now; but at midnight, possession will pass to my principal, Count Angelo, and – well, you can foresee what will happen. He will march straight off the field, and carry Luigi with him.”
“Why! sure enough!” cried the judge, “we have heard something about that extraordinary law of their being, already – nothing very definite, it is true, as regards dates and durations of power, but I see it is definite enough as regards to-night. Of course we must give Luigi every chance. Omit all the ceremonial possible, gentlemen, and place us in position.”
The seconds at once tossed up a coin; Howard won the choice. He placed the judge sixty feet from the haunted house and facing it; Wilson placed the twins within fifteen feet of the house and facing the judge – necessarily. The pistol-case was opened and the long slim tubes taken out; when the moonlight glinted from them a shiver went through Angelo. The doctor was a fool, but a thoroughly well-meaning one, with a kind heart and a sincere disposition to oblige, but along with it an absence of tact which often hurt its effectiveness. He brought his box of lint and bandages, and asked Angelo to feel and see how soft and comfortable they were. Angelo’s head fell over against Luigi’s in a faint, and precious time was lost in bringing him to; which provoked Luigi into expressing his mind to the doctor with a good deal of vigor and frankness. After Angelo came to he was still so weak that Luigi was obliged to drink a stiff horn of brandy to brace him up.
The seconds now stepped at once to their posts, halfway between the combatants, one of them on each side of the line of fire. Wilson was to count, very deliberately, “One-two-three-fire! – stop!” and the duelists could bang away at any time they chose during that recitation, but not after the last word. Angelo grew very nervous when he saw Wilson’s hand rising slowly into the air as a sign to make ready, and he leaned his head against Luigi’s and said:
“Oh, please take me away from here, I can’t stay, I know I can’t!”
“What in the world are you doing? Straighten up! What’s the matter with you? – you’re in no danger – nobody’s going to shoot at you. Straighten up, I tell you!”
Angelo obeyed, just in time to hear:
“One – !”
“Bang!” Just one report, and a little tuft of white hair floated slowly to the judge’s feet in the moonlight. The judge did not swerve; he still stood erect and motionless, like a statue, with his pistol-arm hanging straight down at his side. He was reserving his fire.
“Two – !”
“Three – “!
“Fire – !”
Up came the pistol-arm instantly-Angelo dodged with the report. He said “Ouch!” and fainted again.
The doctor examined and bandaged the wound.
It was of no consequence, he said – bullet through fleshy part of arm – no bones broken – the gentleman was still able to fight let the duel proceed.
Next time Angelo jumped just as Luigi fired, which disordered his aim and caused him to cut a chip off of Howard’s ear. The judge took his time again, and when he fired Angelo jumped and got a knuckle skinned. The doctor inspected and dressed the wounds. Angelo now spoke out and said he was content with the satisfaction he had got, and if the judge – but Luigi shut him roughly up, and asked him not to make an ass of himself; adding:
“And I want you to stop dodging. You take a great deal too prominent a part in this thing for a person who has got nothing to do with it. You should remember that you are here only by courtesy, and are without official recognition; officially you are not here at all; officially you do not even exist. To all intents and purposes you are absent from this place, and you ought for your own modesty’s sake to reflect that it cannot become a person who is not present here to be taking this sort of public and indecent prominence in a matter in which he is not in the slightest degree concerned. Now, don’t dodge again; the bullets are not for you, they are for me; if I want them dodged I will attend to it myself. I never saw a person act so.”
Angelo saw the reasonableness of what his brother had said, and he did try to reform, but it was of no use; both pistols went off at the same instant, and he jumped once more; he got a sharp scrape along his cheek from the judge’s bullet, and so deflected Luigi’s aim that his ball went wide and chipped a flake of skin from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s chin. The doctor attended to the wounded.
By the terms, the duel was over. But Luigi was entirely out of patience, and begged for one more exchange of shots, insisting that he had had no fair chance, on account of his brother’s indelicate behavior. Howard was opposed to granting so unusual a privilege, but the judge took Luigi’s part, and added that indeed he himself might fairly be considered entitled to another trial, because although the proxy on the other side was in no way to blame for his (the judge’s) humiliatingly resultless work, the gentleman with whom he was fighting this duel was to blame for it, since if he had played no advantages and had held his head still, his proxy would have been disposed of early. He added:
“Count Luigi’s request for another exchange is another proof that he is a brave and chivalrous gentleman, and I beg that the courtesy he asks may be accorded him.”
“I thank you most sincerely for this generosity, Judge Driscoll,” said Luigi, with a polite bow, and moving to his place. Then he added – to Angelo, “Now hold your grip, hold your grip, I tell you, and I’ll land him sure!”
The men stood erect, their pistol-arms at their sides, the two seconds stood at their official posts, the doctor stood five paces in Wilson’s rear with his instruments and bandages in his hands. The deep stillness, the peaceful moonlight, the motionless figures, made an impressive picture and the impending fatal possibilities augmented this impressiveness to solemnity. Wilson’s hand began to rise – slowly – slowly – higher – still higher – still higher – in another moment:
“Boom!” the first stroke of midnight swung up out of the distance; Angelo was off like a deer!
“Oh, you unspeakable traitor!” wailed his brother, as they went soaring over the fence.
The others stood astonished and gazing; and so stood, watching that strange spectacle until distance dissolved it and swept it from their view. Then they rubbed their eyes like people waking out of a dream.
“Well, I’ve never seen anything like that before!” said the judge. “Wilson, I am going to confess now, that I wasn’t quite able to believe in that leg business, and had a suspicion that it was a put-up convenience between those twins; and when Count Angelo fainted I thought I saw the whole scheme – thought it was pretext No. 1, and would be followed by others till twelve o’clock should arrive, and Luigi would get off with all the credit of seeming to want to fight and yet not have to fight, after all. But I was mistaken. His pluck proved it. He’s a brave fellow and did want to fight.”
“There isn’t any doubt about that,” said Howard, and added, in a grieved tone, “but what an unworthy sort of Christian that Angelo is – I hope and believe there are not many like him. It is not right to engage in a duel on the Sabbath – I could not approve of that myself; but to finish one that has been begun – that is a duty, let the day be what it may.”
They strolled along, still wondering, still talking.
“It is a curious circumstance,” remarked the surgeon, halting Wilson a moment to paste some more court-plaster on his chin, which had gone to leaking blood again, “that in this duel neither of the parties who handled the pistols lost blood while nearly all the persons present in the mere capacity of guests got hit. I have not heard of such a thing before. Don’t you think it unusual?”
“Yes,” said the Judge, “it has struck me as peculiar. Peculiar and unfortunate. I was annoyed at it, all the time. In the case of Angelo it made no great difference, because he was in a measure concerned, though not officially; but it troubled me to see the seconds compromised, and yet I knew no way to mend the matter.
“There was no way to mend it,” said Howard, whose ear was being readjusted now by the doctor; “the code fixes our place, and it would not have been lawful to change it. If we could have stood at your side, or behind you, or in front of you, it – but it would not have been legitimate and the other parties would have had a just right to complain of our trying to protect ourselves from danger; infractions of the code are certainly not permissible in any case whatever.”
Wilson offered no remarks. It seemed to him that there was very little place here for so much solemnity, but he judged that if a duel where nobody was in danger or got crippled but the seconds and the outsiders had nothing ridiculous about it for these gentlemen, his pointing out that feature would probably not help them to see it.
He invited them in to take a nightcap, and Howard and the judge accepted, but the doctor said he would have to go and see how Angelo’s principal wound was getting on.
[It was now Sunday, and in the afternoon Angelo was to be received into the Baptist communion by immersion – a doubtful prospect, the doctor feared.]
CHAPTER VII. LUIGI DEFIES GALEN
When the doctor arrived at Aunt Patsy Cooper’s house, he found the lights going and everybody up and dressed and in a great state of solicitude and excitement. The twins were stretched on a sofa in the sitting-room, Aunt Patsy was fussing at Angelo’s arm, Nancy was flying around under her commands, the two young boys were trying to keep out of the way and always getting in it, in order to see and wonder, Rowena stood apart, helpless with apprehension and emotion, and Luigi was growling in unappeasable fury over Angelo’s shameful flight.
As has been reported before, the doctor was a fool – a kind-hearted and well-meaning one, but with no tact; and as he was by long odds the most learned physician in the town, and was quite well aware of it, and could talk his learning with ease and precision, and liked to show off when he had an audience, he was sometimes tempted into revealing more of a case than was good for the patient.
He examined Angelo’s wound, and was really minded to say nothing for once; but Aunt Patsy was so anxious and so pressing that he allowed his caution to be overcome, and proceeded to empty himself as follows, with scientific relish:
“Without going too much into detail, madam – for you would probably not understand it, anyway – I concede that great care is going to be necessary here; otherwise exudation of the esophagus is nearly sure to ensue, and this will be followed by ossification and extradition of the maxillaris superioris, which must decompose the granular surfaces of the great infusorial ganglionic system, thus obstructing the action of the posterior varioloid arteries, and precipitating compound strangulated sorosis of the valvular tissues, and ending unavoidably in the dispersion and combustion of the marsupial fluxes and the consequent embrocation of the bicuspid populo redax referendum rotulorum.”
A miserable silence followed. Aunt Patsy’s heart sank, the pallor of despair invaded her face, she was not able to speak; poor Rowena wrung her hands in privacy and silence, and said to herself in the bitterness of her young grief, “There is no hope – it is plain there is no hope”; the good-hearted negro wench, Nancy, paled to chocolate, then to orange, then to amber, and thought to herself with yearning sympathy and sorrow, “Po’ thing, he ain’ gwyne to las’ throo de half o’ dat”; small Henry choked up, and turned his head away to hide his rising tears, and his brother Joe said to himself, with a sense of loss, “The baptizing’s busted, that’s sure.” Luigi was the only person who had any heart to speak. He said, a little bit sharply, to the doctor:
“Well, well, there’s nothing to be gained by wasting precious time; give him a barrel of pills – I’ll take them for him.”
“You?” asked the doctor.
“Yes. Did you suppose he was going to take them himself?”
“Why, of course.”
“Well, it’s a mistake. He never took a dose of medicine in his life. He can’t.”
“Well, upon my word, it’s the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of!”
“Oh,” said Aunt Patsy, as pleased as a mother whose child is being admired and wondered at; “you’ll find that there’s more about them that’s wonderful than their just being made in the image of God like the rest of His creatures, now you can depend on that, I tell you,” and she wagged her complacent head like one who could reveal marvelous things if she chose.
The boy Joe began:
“Why, ma, they ain’t made in the im – ”
“You shut up, and wait till you’re asked, Joe. I’ll let you know when I want help. Are you looking for something, doctor?”
The doctor asked for a few sheets of paper and a pen, and said he would write a prescription; which he did. It was one of Galen’s; in fact, it was Galen’s favorite, and had been slaying people for sixteen thousand years. Galen used it for everything, applied it to everything, said it would remove everything, from warts all the way through to lungs and it generally did. Galen was still the only medical authority recognized in Missouri; his practice was the only practice known to the Missouri doctors, and his prescriptions were the only ammunition they carried when they went out for game.
By and by Dr. Claypool laid down his pen and read the result of his labors aloud, carefully and deliberately, for this battery must be constructed on the premises by the family, and mistakes could occur; for he wrote a doctor’s hand – the hand which from the beginning of time has been so disastrous to the apothecary and so profitable to the undertaker:
“Take of afarabocca, henbane, corpobalsamum, each two drams and a half; of cloves, opium, myrrh, cyperus, each two drams; of opobalsamum, Indian leaf, cinnamon, zedoary, ginger, coftus, coral, cassia, euphorbium, gum tragacanth, frankincense, styrax calamita, Celtic, nard, spignel, hartwort, mustard, saxifrage, dill, anise, each one dram; of xylaloes, rheum ponticum, alipta, moschata, castor, spikenard, galangals, opoponax, anacardium, mastich, brimstone, peony, eringo, pulp of dates, red and white hermodactyls, roses, thyme, acorns, pennyroyal, gentian, the bark of the root of mandrake, germander, valerian, bishop’s-weed, bayberries, long and white pepper, xylobalsamum, carnabadium, macedonian, parsley seeds, lovage, the seeds of rue, and sinon, of each a dram and a half; of pure gold, pure silver, pearls not perforated, the blatta byzantina, the bone of the stag’s heart, of each the quantity of fourteen grains of wheat; of sapphire, emerald and jasper stones, each one dram; of hazel-nuts, two drams; of pellitory of Spain, shavings of ivory, calamus odoratus, each the quantity of twenty-nine grains of wheat; of honey or sugar a sufficient quantity. Boil down and skim off.”
“There,” he said, “that will fix the patient; give his brother a dipperful every three-quarters of an hour – ”
“ – while he survives,” muttered Luigi —
“ – and see that the room is kept wholesomely hot, and the doors and windows closed tight. Keep Count Angelo nicely covered up with six or seven blankets, and when he is thirsty – which will be frequently – moisten a rag in the vapor of the tea kettle and let his brother suck it. When he is hungry – which will also be frequently – he must not be humored oftener than every seven or eight hours; then toast part of a cracker until it begins to brown, and give it to his brother.”
“That is all very well, as far as Angelo is concerned,” said Luigi, “but what am I to eat?”
“I do not see that there is anything the matter with you,” the doctor answered, “you may, of course, eat what you please.”
“And also drink what I please, I suppose?”
“Oh, certainly – at present. When the violent and continuous perspiring has reduced your strength, I shall have to reduce your diet, of course, and also bleed you, but there is no occasion for that yet awhile.” He turned to Aunt Patsy and said: “He must be put to bed, and sat up with, and tended with the greatest care, and not allowed to stir for several days and nights.”
“For one, I’m sacredly thankful for that,” said Luigi, “it postpones the funeral – I’m not to be drowned to-day, anyhow.”
Angelo said quietly to the doctor:
“I will cheerfully submit to all your requirements, sir, up to two o’clock this afternoon, and will resume them after three, but cannot be confined to the house during that intermediate hour.”
“Why, may I ask?”
“Because I have entered the Baptist communion, and by appointment am to be baptised in the river at that hour.”
“Oh, insanity! – it cannot be allowed!”
Angelo answered with placid firmness:
“Nothing shall prevent it, if I am alive.”
“Why, consider, my dear sir, in your condition it might prove fatal.”
A tender and ecstatic smile beamed from Angelo’s eyes, and he broke forth in a tone of joyous fervency:
“Ah, how blessed it would be to die for such a cause – it would be martyrdom!”
“But your brother – consider your brother; you would be risking his life, too.”
“He risked mine an hour ago,” responded Angelo, gloomily; “did he consider me?” A thought swept through his mind that made him shudder. “If I had not run, I might have been killed in a duel on the Sabbath day, and my soul would have been lost – lost.”
“Oh, don’t fret, it wasn’t in any danger,” said Luigi, irritably; “they wouldn’t waste it for a little thing like that; there’s a glass case all ready for it in the heavenly museum, and a pin to stick it up with.”
Aunt Patsy was shocked, and said:
“Looy, Looy! – don’t talk so, dear!”
Rowena’s soft heart was pierced by Luigi’s unfeeling words, and she murmured to herself, “Oh, if I but had the dear privilege of protecting and defending him with my weak voice! – but alas! this sweet boon is denied me by the cruel conventions of social intercourse.”
“Get their bed ready,” said Aunt Patsy to Nancy, “and shut up the windows and doors, and light their candles, and see that you drive all the mosquitoes out of their bar, and make up a good fire in their stove, and carry up some bags of hot ashes to lay to his feet – ”
“ – and a shovel of fire for his head, and a mustard plaster for his neck, and some gum shoes for his ears,” Luigi interrupted, with temper; and added, to himself, “Damnation, I’m going to be roasted alive, I just know it!”
“Why, Looy! Do be quiet; I never saw such a fractious thing. A body would think you didn’t care for your brother.”
“I don’t – to that extent, Aunt Patsy. I was glad the drowning was postponed a minute ago, but I’m not now. No, that is all gone by; I want to be drowned.”
“You’ll bring a judgment on yourself just as sure as you live, if you go on like that. Why, I never heard the beat of it. Now, there – there! you’ve said enough. Not another word out of you – I won’t have it!”
“But, Aunt Patsy – ”
“Luigi! Didn’t you hear what I told you?”
“But, Aunt Patsy, I – why, I’m not going to set my heart and lungs afloat in that pail of sewage which this criminal here has been prescri – ”
“Yes, you are, too. You are going to be good, and do everything I tell you, like a dear,” and she tapped his cheek affectionately with her finger. “Rowena, take the prescription and go in the kitchen and hunt up the things and lay them out for me. I’ll sit up with my patient the rest of the night, doctor; I can’t trust Nancy, she couldn’t make Luigi take the medicine. Of course, you’ll drop in again during the day. Have you got any more directions?”
“No, I believe not, Aunt Patsy. If I don’t get in earlier, I’ll be along by early candle-light, anyway. Meantime, don’t allow him to get out of his bed.”
Angelo said, with calm determination:
“I shall be baptized at two o’clock. Nothing but death shall prevent me.”
The doctor said nothing aloud, but to himself he said:
“Why, this chap’s got a manly side, after all! Physically he’s a coward, but morally he’s a lion. I’ll go and tell the others about this; it will raise him a good deal in their estimation – and the public will follow their lead, of course.”
Privately, Aunt Patsy applauded too, and was proud of Angelo’s courage in the moral field as she was of Luigi’s in the field of honor.