A very faint mist of smoke
hung before his face which had an extraordinary aspect as if the lower
jaw had come unhinged.
"Not missed!" he croaked hoarsely from the depths of a dry throat.
This sinister sound loosened the spell which had fallen on General
D'Hubert's senses.
"Yes, missed--a _bout portant_" he heard himself saying exultingly
almost before he had recovered the full command of his faculties.
The revulsion of feeling was accompanied by a gust of homicidal fury
resuming in its violence the accumulated resentment of a lifetime.
For years General D'Hubert had been exasperated and humiliated by an
atrocious absurdity imposed upon him by that man's savage caprice.
Besides, General D'Hubert had been in this last instance too unwilling
to confront death for the reaction of his anguish not to take the shape
of a desire to kill.
"And I have my two shots to fire yet," he added pitilessly.
General Feraud snapped his teeth, and his face assumed an irate,
undaunted expression.
"Go on," he growled.
These would have been his last words on earth if General D'Hubert had
been holding the pistols in his hand. But the pistols were lying on the
ground at the foot of a tall pine. General D'Hubert had the second's
leisure necessary to remember that he had dreaded death not as a man but
as a lover, not as a danger but as a rival--not as a foe to life but
as an obstacle to marriage. And, behold, there was the rival defeated!
Miserably defeated-crushed--done for!
He picked up the weapons mechanically, and instead of firing them into
General Feraud's breast, gave expression to the thought uppermost in his
mind.
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