However, Kate had reasons for declining the service, and did so. But
the officer, as he was sullenly departing, said--that, if he were
killed, (as he thought he _should_ be,) his death would lie at
Kate's door. I do not take _his_ view of the case, and am not
moved by his rhetoric or his logic. Kate _was_, and relented. The
duel was fixed for eleven at night, under the walls of a monastery.
Unhappily the night proved unusually dark, so that the two principals
had to tie white handkerchiefs round their elbows, in order to descry
each other. In the confusion they wounded each other mortally. Upon
that, according to a usage not peculiar to Spaniards, but extending (as
doubtless the reader knows) for a century longer to our own countrymen,
the two seconds were obliged in honor to do something towards avenging
their principals. Kate had her usual fatal luck. Her sword passed sheer
through the body of her opponent: this unknown opponent falling dead,
had just breath left to cry out, 'Ah, villain, you have killed me,' in
a voice of horrific reproach; and the voice was the voice of her
brother!
The monks of the monastery, under whose silent shadows this murderous
duel had taken place, roused by the clashing of swords and the angry
shouts of combatants, issued out with torches to find one only of the
four officers surviving.
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