Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/287

 end their duel. Ere I had time to cry out, or even to overcome the first paralysis of the fear that held me, one of them, who by his breadth of figure I knew to be the Captain, raised his right hand slowly. At that, although the actual time of the whole affair could not have exceeded half a minute, such tricks can terror play upon us that the entire strength appeared to ooze slowly from my body, as though a surgeon had opened one of my vital arteries and was bleeding me to death by slow degrees. And the instant the Captain's hand went up, I stopped through arrant horror and that dreadful sense of sheer incompetence that afflicts one in a nightmare. I made one attempt to scream out to them, but my throat seemed useless, and my voice resembled the feeble croakings of a frog. Before I could make another, there came a sound like a mastiff's bay, and in the most cold, convulsive terror I put my hands before my eyes. They must have been still there, I think, and my eyes have turned to stone, for to this day I swear that I never saw the second and the fatal shot, and, still stranger, actually did not hear it. But when my vision cleared I thought I saw one man prone beside his lantern, and the other bending over him.

The die cast, and the deed accomplished, my limbs resumed their proper office and I was able to proceed. Fate had intervened already, the worst had happened, the tragedy was consummated. The actual fact is ever easier to support than the suspense of it. While I ran to the scene of the murder,