Page:Sketches by Mark Twain.djvu/16

14 "Sixty-five yards with these instruments? Pop-guns would be deadlier at fifty. Consider, my friend, you and I are banded together to destroy life, not to make it eternal."

But with all my persuasions, all my arguments, I was only able to get him to reduce the distance to thirty-five yards; and even this concession he made with reluctance, and said with a sigh,—

"I wash my hands of this slaughter; on your head be it."

There was nothing for me but to go home to my old lion-heart and tell my humiliating story. When I entered, M. Gambetta was laying his last lock of hair upon the altar. He sprang towards me, exclaiming,—

"You have made the fatal arrangements,—I see it in your eye!"

"I have."

His face paled a trifle, and he leaned upon the table for support. He breathed thick and heavily for a moment or two, so tumultuous were his feelings; then he hoarsely whispered,—

"The weapon, the weapon! Quick! what is the weapon?"

"This!" and I displayed that silver-mounted thing. He caught but one glimpse of it, then swooned ponderously to the floor.

When he came to, he said mournfully,

"The unnatural calm to which I have subjected myself has told upon my nerves. But away with weakness! I will confront my fate like a man and a Frenchman."

He rose to his feet and assumed an attitude which for sublimity has never been approached by man, and has