very soul writhed. The tenacity of that Feraud, the awful persistence of that imbecile brute, came to him with the tremendous force of a relentless destiny. General D’Hubert trembled as he put down the empty water ewer. “He will have me,” he thought. General D’Hubert was tasting every emotion that life has to give. He had in his dry mouth the faint sickly flavour of fear, not the excusable fear before a young girl’s candid and amused glance, but the fear of death and the honourable man’s fear of cowardice.
But if true courage consists in going out to meet an odious danger from which our body, soul, and heart recoil together, General D’Hubert had the opportunity to practise it for the first time in his life. He had charged exultingly at batteries and at infantry squares, and ridden with messages through a hail of bullets without thinking anything about it. His business now was to sneak out unheard, at break of day, to an obscure and revolting death. General D’Hubert never hesitated. He carried two pistols in a leather bag which he slung over his shoulder. Before he had crossed the garden his mouth was dry again. He picked two oranges. It was only after shutting the gate after him that he felt a slight faintness.
He staggered on, disregarding it, and after going a few yards regained the command of his legs. In the colourless and pellucid dawn the wood of pines detached its columns of trunks and its dark green canopy very clearly against the rocks of the grey hillside. He kept his eyes fixed on it steadily, and sucked at an orange as he walked. That temperamental good-humoured coolness in the face of danger which had made him an officer liked by his men and appreciated by his superiors was gradually asserting itself. It was like going into battle. Arriving at the edge of the wood he sat down on a boulder, holding the other orange in his hand, and reproached himself for coming so ridiculously early on the ground. Before very long, however, he heard the swishing of bushes, footsteps on the hard ground, and the sounds of a disjointed, loud conversation. A voice somewhere behind him said boastfully, “He’s game for my bag.”
He thought to himself, “Here they are. What’s this about game? Are they talking of me?” And becoming aware of the other orange in his hand, he thought further, “These are very good oranges. Leonie’s own tree. I may just as well eat this orange now instead of flinging it away.”
Emerging from a wilderness of rocks and bushes, General Feraud and his seconds discovered General D’Hubert engaged in peeling the orange. They stood still, waiting till he looked up. Then the seconds raised their hats, while General Feraud, putting his hands behind his back, walked aside a little way.
“I am compelled to ask one of you, messieurs, to act for me. I have brought no friends. Will you?”
The one-eyed cuirassier said judicially, “That cannot be refused.”
The other veteran remarked, “It’s awkward all the same.”
“Owing to the state of the people’s minds in this part of the country there was no one I could trust safely with the object of your presence here,” explained General D’Hubert, urbanely.
They saluted, looked round, and remarked both together:
“Poor ground.”
“It’s unfit.”
“Why bother about ground, measurements, and so on? Let us simplify matters. Load the two pairs of pistols. I will take those of General Feraud, and let him take mine. Or, better still, let us take a mixed pair. One of each pair. Then let us go into the wood and shoot at sight, while you remain outside. We did not come here for ceremonies, but for war — war to the death. Any ground is good enough for that. If I fall, you must leave me where I lie and clear out. It wouldn’t be healthy for you to be found hanging about here after that.”
It appeared after a short parley that General Feraud was willing to accept these conditions. While the seconds were loading the pistols, he could be heard whistling, and was seen to rub his hands with perfect contentment. He flung off his coat briskly, and General D ‘Hubert took off his own and folded it carefully on a stone.
“Suppose you take your principal to the other side of the wood and let him enter exactly in ten minutes from now,” suggested General D’Hubert, calmly, but feeling as if he were giving directions for his own execution. This, however, was his last moment of weakness. “Wait. Let us compare watches first.”
He pulled out his own. The officer with the chipped nose went over to borrow the watch of General Feraud. They bent their heads over them for a time.
“That’s it. At four minutes to six by yours. Seven to by mine.”
It was the cuirassier who remained by the side of General D’Hubert, keeping his one eye fixed immovably on the white face of the watch he held in the palm of his hand. He opened his mouth, waiting for the beat of the last second long before he snapped out the word, “Avancez.”
General D’Hubert moved on, passing from the glaring sunshine of the Provencal morning into the cool and aromatic shade of the pines. The ground was clear between the reddish trunks, whose multitude, leaning at slightly different angles, confused his eye at first. It was like going into battle. The commanding quality of confidence in himself woke up in his breast. He was all to his affair. The problem was how to kill the adversary. Nothing short of that would free him from this imbecile nightmare. “It’s no use wounding that brute,” thought General D’Hubert. He was known as a resourceful officer. His comrades years ago used also to call him The Strategist. And it was a fact that he could think in the presence of the enemy. Whereas Feraud had been always a mere fighter — but a dead shot, unluckily.
“I must draw his fire at the greatest possible range,” said General D’Hubert to himself.
At that moment he saw something white moving far off between the trees — the shirt of his adversary. He stepped out at once between the trunks, exposing himself freely; then, quick as lightning, leaped back. It had been a risky move but it succeeded in its object. Almost simultaneously with the pop of a shot a small piece of bark chipped off by the bullet stung his ear painfully.
General Feraud, with one shot expended, was getting cautious. Peeping round the tree, General D’Hubert could not see him at all. This ignorance of the foe’s whereabouts carried with it a sense of insecurity. General D’Hubert felt himself abominably exposed on his flank and rear. Again something white fluttered in his sight. Ha! The enemy was still on his front, then. He had feared a turning movement. But apparently General Feraud was not thinking of it. General D’Hubert saw him pass without special haste from one tree to another in the straight line of approach. With great firmness of mind General D’Hubert stayed his hand. Too far yet. He knew he was no marksman. His must be a waiting game — to kill.
Wishing to take advantage of the greater thickness of the trunk, he sank down to the ground. Extended at full length, head on to his enemy, he had his person completely protected. Exposing himself would not do now, because the other was too near by this time. A conviction that Feraud would presently do something rash was like balm to General D’Hubert’s soul. But to keep his chin raised off the ground was irksome, and not much use either. He peeped round, exposing a fraction of his head with dread, but really with little risk. His enemy, as a matter of fact,
