THE DUEL TO THE DEATH
The ordinary valour only works
At those rare intervals when peril lurks;
There is a courage, scarcer far, and stranger,
Which nothing can intimidate but danger.
_Original Stanza by H. B. J._
No sooner had Mr Bhosh obeyed the summons of Lord Jack, than the latter
not only violently reproached him for having embezzled the heart of his
chosen bride, but inflicted upon him sundry severe kicks from behind,
barbarously threatening to encore the proceeding unless Chunder
instantaneously agreed to meet him in a mortal combat.
Our hero, though grievously hurt, did not abandon his presence of mind
in his tight fix. Seating himself upon a divan, so as to obviate any
repetition of such treatment, he thus addressed his former friend: "My
dear Jack, Plato observes that anger is an abbreviated form of insanity.
Do not let us fall out about so mere a trifle, since one friend is the
equivalent of many females. Is it my fault that feminines overwhelm me
with unsought affections? Let us both remember that we are men of the
world, and if you on your side will overlook the fact that I have
unwittingly fascinated your _fiancee_, I, on mine, am ready to forget my
unmerciful kickings."
But Lord Jolly violently rejected such a give-and-take compromise, and
again declared that if Mr Bhosh declined to fight he was to receive
further kicks. Upon this Chunder demanded time for reflection; he was no
bellicose, but he reasoned thus with his soul: "It is not certain that a
bullet will hit--whereas, it is impossible for a kick to miss its mark."
So, weeping to find himself between a deep sea and the devil of a
kicking, he accepted the challenge, feeling like Imperial Caesar, when
he found himself compelled to climb up a rubicon after having burnt his
boots!
Being naturally reluctant to kick his brimming bucket of life while
still a lusty juvenile, Mr Bhosh was occupied in lamenting the
injudiciousness of Providence when he was most unexpectedly relieved by
the entrance of his lady-love, the Princess Jones, who, having heard
that her letter had fallen into Lord Jack's hands, and that a sanguinary
encounter would shortly transpire, had cast off every rag of maidenly
propriety, and sought a clandestine interview.
She brought Bindabun the gratifying intelligence that she was a _persona
grata_ with his lordship's seconder, Mr Bodgers, who was to load the
deadly weapons, and who, at her request, had promised to do so with
cartridges from which the bullets had previously been bereft.
Such a piece of good news so enlivened Mr Bhosh, that he immediately
recovered his usual serenity, and astounded all by his perfect
nonchalance. It was arranged that the tragical affair should come off in
the back garden of Baronet Jolly's castle, immediately after breakfast,
in the presence of a few select friends and neighbours, among
whom--needless to say--was Princess Petunia, whose lamp-like optics
beamed encouragement to her Indian champion, and the Duchess of
Dickinson, who was now the freehold tenement of those fiendish Siamese
twins--Malice and Jealousy. At breakfast, Mr Bhosh partook freely of all
the dishes, and rallied his antagonist for declining another fowl-egg,
rather wittily suggesting that he was becoming a chicken-hearted. The
company then adjourned to the garden, and all who were non-combatants
took up positions as far outside the zone of fire as possible.
Mr Bhosh was rejoiced to receive from the above-mentioned Mr Bodgers a
secret intimation that it was the put-up job, and little piece of
allright, which emboldened him to make the rather spirited proposal to
his lordship, that they were to fire--not at the distance of one hundred
paces, as originally suggested--but across the more restricted space of
a nosekerchief. This dare-devilish proposal occasioned a universal
outcry of horror and admiration; Mr Bhosh's seconder, a young
poor-hearted chap, entreated him to renounce his plan of campaign, while
Lord Jack and Mr Bodgers protested that it was downright tomfolly.
Chunder, however, remained game to his backbone. "If," he ironically
said, "my honble friend prefers to admit that he is inferior in physical
courage to a native Indian who is commonly accredited with a funky
heart, let him apologise. Otherwise, as a challenged, I am the Master of
the Ceremonies. I do not insist upon the exchange of more than one
shoot--but it is the _sine qua non_ that such shoot is to take place
across a nosewipe."
Upon which his lordship became green as grass with apprehensiveness,
being unaware that the cartridges had been carefully sterilised, but
glueing his courage to the sticky point, he said, "Be it so, you
blood-thirsty little beggar--and may your gore be on your own knob!"
"It is always barely possible," retorted Mr Bhosh, "that we may _both_
miss the target!" And he made a secret motion to Mr Bodgers with his
superior eyeshutter, intimating that he was to remember to omit the
bullets.
But lackadaisy! as Poet Burns sings, the best-laid schemes both of men
and in the mouse department are liable to gang aft--and so it was in the
present instance, for Duchess Dickinson intercepted Chunder Bindabun's
wink and, with the diabolical intuition of a feminine, divined the
presence of a rather suspicious rat. Accordingly, on the diaphanous
pretext that Mr Bodgers was looking faintish and callow, she insisted on
applying a very large smelling-jar to his nasal organ.
Whether the vessel was charged with salts of superhuman potency, or some
narcotic drug, I am not to inquire--but the result was that, after a
period of prolonged sternutation, Mr Bodgers became impercipient on a
bed of geraniums.
Thereupon Chunder, perceiving that he had lost his friend in court,
magnanimously said: "I cannot fight an antagonist who is unprovided with
a seconder, and will wait until Mr Bodgers is recuperated." But the
honourable and diabolical duchess nipped this arrangement in the bud.
"It would be a pity," said she, "that Mr Bhosh's fiery ardour should be
cooled by delay. _I_ am capable to load a firearm, and will act as Lord
Jolly's seconder."
Our hero took the objection that, as a feminine was not legally
qualified to act as seconder in mortal combats, the duel would be
rendered null and void, and appealed to his own seconder to confirm this
_obiter dictum_.
Unluckily the latter was a poor beetlehead who was in excessive fear of
offending the Duchess, and gave it as his opinion that sex was no
disqualification, and that the Duchess of Dickinson was fully competent
to load the lethal weapons, provided that she knew how.
Whereupon she, regarding Mr Bhosh with the malignant simper of a fiend,
did not only deliberately fill each pistol-barrel with a bullet from her
own reticule bag, but also had the additional _diablerie_ to extract a
miniature laced _mouchoir_ exquisitely perfumed with cherry-blossoms,
and to say, "Please fire across this. I am confident that it will bring
you good luck."
And Mr Bhosh recognised with emotions that baffle description the very
counterpart of the nose-handkerchief which she had flung at him months
previously at the aforesaid fashionable Bayswater Ball! Now was our poor
miserable hero indeed up the tree of embarrassment--and there I must
leave him till the next chapter.