University of Virginia Library

LEGEND FIFTH.
THE CHALLENGE.

One evening in the fall of 1754, three gentlemen
were seated in a quiet room of an Inn,
talking with each other with evident earnestness,
on a subject of much importance.

It was a comfortable chamber, with carefully
sanded floor, high-backed oaken chairs, and a
side-board, or beaufet, covered with decanters
and glasses. The centre of the room was occupied
by a large table, on which a lighted candle
appeared, with a pair of pistols on one side,
a sheet of paper, pens and an ink-stand on the
other. And while the light of the candle fell
over the animated faces of the three gentlemen,
and the slight fire burning on the hearth imbued
the atmosphere with comfortable warmth, they
maintained their conversation with energetic
gestures, yet in a subdued and whispering tone.

The eldest of the three, a grim old man, with
bald head, and grey whiskers on his bronzed
cheek, was clad in a scarlet uniform. His
form was rather portly: the expression of his
grey eyes full of settled spleen; the very wrinkles
about his compressed lips, indicated a hasty
and irascible temper. The others, when they
spoke to him, called him “Captain,” for, some
years before, he had served in the regular force
of the British Army, and although he had long
resigned his commission, the odor of his dignity,
as well as the glitter of the uniform,
clung around him still.

He sat at the head of the table, resting his
hand upon the sheet of letter paper on which
he was writing, and writing a challenge for a
Ducl.

The second of the party, a tall man, with fair
complexion, yet firm and regular features, was
clad in the costume of a planter; he sat in an
arm chair, calmly smoking a cigar, and now
and then adding a word, which was to the con
versation like a spark to a keg of gunpowder.
He was called “'Squire.”

The third, a slender young man, almost effeminate
in his appearance, and attired in a close-fitting
British uniform, sat at the foot of the table,
his delicate hands laid upon the pistols. They
were intended for the anticipated duel. The
eyes of this young man, large, dark, and intensely
brilliant, illumined a pale, thoughtful
face, and his mouth was impressed with a
smile, which had as much of scorn as of mirth
for its meaning. He was known by the others
as “the Ensign.”

And these three men, by the light of a wax
candle, cheered by the kindly warmth of a wood
fire, had secluded themselves in the Inn-room,
in the early hours of an autumnal evening, in
order to plan a deadly combat, and prepare the
way over which two living men might journey
speedily to their coffins and the grave-yard.

It was, in fact, a Council of War.

Let us listen to the “Ensign,” while he explains
the cause of the duel; there is music in
his delicately modulated voice:

“This day, gentlemen, our town was the
scene of the greatest excitement. An election
was held for a member of Assembly: of
course there was a great crowd, and a vast
deal of hard talking and hard swearing. The
excitement was no means diminished by the
presence of a regiment of soldiers, who now
make their quarters in the town. I have the
honor to hold the commission of “Ensign” in
that regiment, gentlemen, as you well know.
The colonel is idolized by his men, although
he is, like myself, only a boy of twenty-two.
You know the history of his campaign in the
West, among the French and Indians. What
Virginian does not know it by heart? And

this Colonel, idolized by his men, loved by
every Virginian heart, was this day, in the
presence of hundreds — yes, in the court-yard
of Alexandria — levelled to the earth by a
blow from a club!”

The Ensign lifted the pistols, and glanced
into the faces of his friends, as if to note the
effect of his words.

“Saw it myself,” said the 'Squire, speaking
between puffs of smoke. “Colonel was struck
to the earth, by a man not five feet high;
Colonel is six feet three inches. Dispute
about the election merits of the different candidates.
Colonel gave Payne the lie! and
Payne seized a club and let him have it. Sum
total of the whole matter — the lie and the
blow have passed, and they must fight.”

The 'Squire knocked the ashes from his
cigar.

“I have written the challenge,” gruffly exclaimed
the Captain, looking round with an
emphatic grimace. “Ensign, will you act as
the Colonel's friend, or shall I? As pretty a
little affair as I ever saw. They can take a
little bit of green meadow, by daylight to-morrow,
and fire a couple of rounds, and settle the
matter like — gentlemen.”

And the worthy Captain confirmed his sentiment
with an oath of remarkable emphasis.
“They must fight, said the 'Squire, “as Virginians!”

“The Colonel will be forever disgraced as a
soldier unless he shoots this Payne,” said the
Ensign, in his mild voice.

“Zounds gentlemen, a blow! D'ye hear
me, a blow with a club —” began the
Captain.

“In the open court-yard, too, in the presence
of hundreds,” interrupted the 'Squire.

“The very soldiers would have massacred
Payne, if the Colonel had not interfered,” said
the Ensign, joining in the chorus. “Certainly
it is the most aggravated case that ever came to
my notice.”

It was an aggravated case. The Colonel, a
gallant youth of twenty-two, who had done
brave service in the wilderness, to be degraded
by a blow, and not only covered with insult,
but struck to the very earth, at the feet of his
antagonist. It was galling. There was no
other way of redressing the wrong, and wash
ing out the insult, save in the blood of one or
other, or both of the parties. And then —

“I know the Colonel,” said the Ensign,
still handling the pistols; “calm and resolved
in the hour of battle, he is a man of impetuous
temper; there is hot blood in his veins.”

“He is in the next chamber,” whispered
the 'Squire, “boiling over with a sense of the
insult, no doubt. Do not speak loud. He
will overhear us — it is not well to drive him
to madness.”

“And yet he must hear us,” — the portly
Captain started from his chair, “and without
delay. For, odds-blood, d'ye see, we must
arrange the preliminaries.”

He moved to the door of the next chamber,
holding the written challenge in his hand.
The Ensign followed, grasping the pistols, and
the 'Squire came next with his — cigar.

The Captain knocked — a pause — no answer.

“He is mad with excitement, no doubt,”
whispered the ex-officer, turning to his comrades
with a sly leer, for he considered a duel
as a capital joke, and the funeral which followed
it, as a striking lesson for the young.

He pushed open the door, and the party
entered the room in which the Colonel sat
alone — doubtless chafed to very madness by
the memory of the wrong.

A wax candle, burning on a table, revealed
the furniture of a spacious chamber, and the
figure of a gentleman, absorbed in writing.
And while he wrote, with his hand gliding
rapidly over the paper, he cast his eyes, very
often, toward a miniature which lay near his
hand. His back was turned toward the three;
of course they could not see his face nor remark
the agitation of his features.

He did not hear the opening door, nor heed
the sound of footsteps, but absorbed by his
thoughts, continued writing.

“Go forward, and tap him on the shoulder,”
whispered the Colonel to the Ensign.

The Ensign advanced on tip-toe, and gliding
over the dark mahogany floor, raised his hand
to place it on the Colonel's shoulder, when his
eye was arrested by the miniature, and his uplifted
hand dropped by his side.

He sank backward, with a noiseless footstep,
and whispered to the gruff Captain.

“I cannot do it now. It is his mother's
picture. He is writing to her —a last letter,
may be.”

The 'Squire now assumed the task, and
said, “Good evening, Colonel!” in a loud,
hearty voice.

The Colonel rose, and greeted his visitors
with a manner which combined all the grace
and warmth of youth with the dignity of riper
years.

As he stood near the table, his form in all
its majesty of stature, and his face with all its
firmness of character, disclosed by the light,
the three gentlemen could not but acknowledge
that he presented a splendid mark for a —
duelling pistol.

The mark of the blow darkened his white
forehead. His hair, nut brown in color, and
without powder, fell in careless masses aside
from his face. He was very pale; his eyes
were bloodshot, and from his loosened cravat
to his torn ruffles, everything about his attire,
had a wild and disordered appearance.

As he stood with one hand resting on the
table, and the other extended toward his
friends, they might recognize that blue uniform,
which had been marked many a time by the
bullet of the foe.

“I have written a challenge, Colonel,” said
the Captain, advancing.

“He struck you down in the presence of hundreds”—and
the Ensign drew near.

“As a Virginian you must fight;”—the
Planter also advanced.

“Gentlemen —my friends —” said the Colonel,
in a voice which was tremulous with
emotion, “you say very justly to me, `you
must fight.' This is the law of the code of
honor; is it not? Well: I will meet Mr.
Payne. I have made my preparations. I
have just written a letter to my mother, in
which I inform her that to-morrow morning I
will go out into a meadow, and let Mr. Payne
shoot me through the heart. That is right —
is it not?”

“But you forget, my dear Colonel, that you
are decidedly the best shot of the two. And
as for the sword, Payne cannot come near you.
You will shoot Payne, my dear Colonel, and
there the matter will end.”

The Ensign uttered these words in his
mildest voice, and with the most gentlemanly
bow in the world.

“Yes, it is true the matter will end there,”
said the Colonel, as he saw his friends encircle
him, “unless, indeed, some day or other I
should happen to meet a wife, or a mother, or
even a sister and hear words like those
whispered in my ear —`Murderer! I demand
my child! or my `brother!' or yet my `husband!'
This, you will confess, would be very
unpleasant.”

The three friends were silent.

The Planter lit the end of his cigar. The
Ensign examined the mountings of the pistols.
The Captain began to be very much interested
in the words of the written challenge.

And the Colonel, looking from face to face,
awaited an answer.

“So you all see, my good friends, that if
there is to be a corpse” —he paused, and the
three friends began to feel uneasy —“a corpse
in this affair, I would much rather be that
corpse myself, than to have the weight of a
murder on my soul.”

“But the insult —it was galling,” cried the
Ensign, his face flushed and his eye brightening.

“It was indeed galling,” said the Colonel,
“but the provocation?”

“You gave him the lie! and you were right,
by —!” said the Captain, in his deepest
bass.

“Let us understand the question fully,”
resumed the Colonel, in that deep tone, and
with that steady glance which exercised an
irresistible influence over his friends. “I am
six feet three inches in height. You all acknowledge
that I possess great personal
strength. Mr. Payne, on the contrary, is
neither remarkable for his stature nor for his
physical power. And I —in the presence of
my soldiers and my friends, call Mr. Payne
by the most opprobrious word known in our
language. Was I right, or was I wrong, my
friends? Which do you most admire, gentlemen,
my gallantry in thus insulting Mr.
Payne, or the courage of Mr. Payne in knocking
me down —by an unexpected blow, it is
true — but in the presence of my soldiers and
my friends?”

A deep pause followed these words.

“Zounds! If I can comprehend you,
Colonel,” cried the Captain.

“Am I to shoot Mr. Payne because I insulted
him?” asked the Colonel!—“or, am I
to shoot him because he was too brave to bear
my insult? These are questions which I would
like settled before I kill him, gentlemen.”

And the Colonel turned away —looked forth
from the window upon the star-lit sky —while
his three friends gazed wonderingly in each
other's faces.

The Colonel remained by the window for at
least five minutes, gazing upon the sky, while
the mark of the blow darkened over his forehead.
His thoughts may have been dark,
bitter —but while he stood there, his three
friends remained near the table, looking into
one another's faces, but without speaking a
word.

“If you were in my place, Ensign, what
would you do?” asked the Colonel, as he
came toward the light again.

“I would sooner be tied to a tree, among
the Indians, with their scalping knives flashing
before my face, than to bear that blow!” said
the Ensign, with a gleaming eye.

“And I would sooner lead off ten forlorn
hopes, old as I am, than to avoid one challenge,
or skulk one duel!”

The old soldier pulled his whiskers with
needless violence, and stamped his foot upon
the floor until the chamber shook again.

“And as for me, I'm neither a young nor
an old soldier, but as a Virginian, sooner than
bear that blow, I would blow my brains out
with one of these pistols.”

The Colonel lowered his head —his face
was shadowed by thought.

“Wherefore, gentlemen?” he asked, in a
changed voice, as he shaded his eyes with his
hand.

“Because, to refuse to fight, in a case like
this, is to wear the name of a —COWARD.”

“And you have not the courage to wear
the name of coward?” exclaimed the Colonel,
still shading his face —“Yes, gentlemen,” —
and he raised his face, no longer gloomy and
pale, but flushed and smiling —“by your own
confession, the courage manifested in dying at
an Indian stake, or in perishing in a forlorn
hope, or in blowing one's brains out with a
suicide's pistol, is nothing —absolutely nothing
—compared with that kind of courage which
enables a man to face the name of coward,
aye, and wear it too!”

The young Colonel was magnificent in
battle —stately in the ball room —glorious on
his war horse —but now, as he pronounced
these words, with a flushed cheek, brilliant eye,
and clear deep voice, his three friends acknowledged
in their whispers that although his ideas
were “deuced bad,” his appearance, his manner,
was imposing beyond all power of words.

The countenance of the three friends, however,
were clouded.

“My dear fellow,” and the pale Ensign laid
his hand upon the arm of his friend; “I have
fought by your side. You know me. These
things abstractly considered, mark you, are
precisely as you say. But come to the
practical view of the matter. There is not a
young man in Virginia with prospects like
yours. You will soon be called upon to lead
your regiment against the common enemy, to
wit, the allied bands of French and Indians.
But you cannot go out to battle for your
country with a dishonored name. You have
been disgraced by a blow — disgraced, mark
you. You must wash out your disgrace in
blood.”

The Ensign spoke with feeling. His companions
murmured assent.

The brow of the Colonel grew cloudy; his
eyes brightened with a deadly fire.

“There must be a duel,” he said with something
like scorn or vengeance on his lip.
“Gentlemen will you excuse me for half an
hour? I myself will write the challenge.”

The three friends retired from the room,
and the Colonel was left alone.

Alone, with the fatal mark upon his forehead,
the insult rankling in his heart, and the
— face of his widowed mother before his
eyes.

We dare not describe the emotions of that
half hour.

When it passed, he came forth, and stood
on the threshold, holding a billet in his right
hand. The three friends started to their feet,
with one movement of surprise. The Colonel
stood before them, not in military array, but in
festival costume; his hair carefully powdered,

his dark attire relieved by a white cravat and
white waistcoat, snow-white ruffles about his
hands, and neat diamond buckles on his shoes.
By his side he wore a plain dress sword.

But his powdered hair and white cravat,
while they threw his remarkable features into
bold relief, and by contrast, gave a deeper
bloom to his cheek, a clearer light to his eyes,
only made the mark on his forehead more
dark and palpable.

“Which of you will hear this challenge to
Mr. Payne?”

The three friends answered as with one
voice — “I will — and I — and I!”

“In my room — at an early hour — tomorrow!”
said the Colonel, very calmly, but
with a singular emphasis upon the words.
“You understand, gentlemen?”

He handed the challenge to the Ensign.

“In your room” — began the portly Captain.

“In my room, my good friend — for especial
reasons,” answered the young officer,
“and hark ye, Captain! Let as many of our
mutual friends, as were witnesses to the insult
be present, at the hour of seven, you will remember?”

“That's it, my boy,” cried the bluff Captain.
“Now you begin to talk!”

But the Ensign did not like the strange
calmness of the Colonel's face, nor did the
Planter know how to construe his festival attire.

“You are not in uniform, Colonel,” he
whispered.

“Oh, no!” and the Colonel glanced at his
attire; “you remember there is a ball this
evening. I must be present. There will be
many of our fair ladies and a goodly array of
gentlemen, no doubt. On no account would I
be absent from the ball”—

“Yet you may have some little affairs to arrange,”
hinted the Ensign —“before a duel,
Colonel, there are letters to write, and you will
need some sleep”—

The Colonel took his brother officer by the
hand and looked intently into his eyes —

“Harry! Do you think a man who has
resolved to commit murder by the morrow's
light, can pass the night before the deed, in
writing letters, or in wholesome slumber,
cheered by pleasant dreams? No! If I must
murder, or be murdered to-morrow morning,
for the sake of Honor, I will pass this night in
the dance — among beautiful ladies — and
groups of friends. We will have gaiety —
dance — song! Come, my friends — who's
for the ball?”

And the gallant Colonel led forth his friends
to the festival of that night — all save the
Ensign, who went to bear the challenge.
And whether the beautiful women of Virginia
flouted in the dance, or strains of merry music
awoke the echoes of the lighted hall, or
groups of admirers clustered round some fair
one, pre-eminent for her loveliness — still,
amid every form of gaiety, the Colonel was
the most prominent; the first, the liveliest and
the handsomest of all the men who were
gathered there.

And all the while as a King might bear his
crown, or a victor his laurels, the Colonel
bore the livid marks upon his forehead.

And the dancers who saw him, so gallant
and so gay — shuddered when they saw the
wound of the fatal blow upon his forehead —
and many a fair daughter of Virginia whis
pered, with accents of undisguised terror, the
words — “To-morrow! * * * The Duel!”