Historical Note: There were several duels fought upon the Plains of Abraham - more there than in all the rest of Canada put together - but only one was fetal. The events and cheracters of this story are quite ficticious.
The first rays of dull morning light crept onto the Plains of Abraham. The fresh snow, tinged with light blue in the half-light, lay undisturbed, save two side-by-side lines of deep footprints. The men who had left them stood next to each other, two black dots on the vast undulating plain, disturbing the natural unity. They were wrapped in cumbersome black fur-lined overcoats, and the shorter held a brass-edged walnut-wood box at his side.
The short man had a roundish face and, although he was balding, he had heavy brown side-burns that were flecked with grey. The two were close to the same age, but the taller man looked considerably younger, with a long sleek face, a sharp strait nose and slightly pouting lips. His eye-brows, side-burns, and curling dark locks contrasted heavily with his light, smooth skin.
“I do hope he arrives soon,” exclaimed the short man, hugging himself with his unburdened arm. It was not terribly cold for that hour of the morning, but Walter Pierson was prone to complaining. Kenneth Stonebridge, the taller of the two, did not reply.
“I do not fancy rising this early,” grumbled Pierson, “’tis unnatural for any beast, to mention naught of our more civilized types.”
“I mean not to be offending, my friend, but I am on edge and would rather hear fewer words,” Stonebridge said quietly.
His friend seemed taken aback for a moment, but returned politely. “I understand, Kenneth, unuseful banter is not of want on the Field of Honor. I shall stem the flow of my speech.”
There was a long silence. Their breath was turned to fog by the cold, but Stonebridge did not show any sign that he was feeling the chill.
“Are you at ease, my dear Sir?” asked Pierson.
“I am, thank you Walter.”
The evening before he had remained awake in his study updating his wills, writing letters to his Mother, his Uncle and two of his cousins. He had also brought down several treatises on dueling by various reputable authors, but it was difficult to keep his concentration focused on the printed words, and his mind would float off to think about his wife, his young son, his aging mother. His mortality. But when he once again became aware of the volume before his eyes, he noticed that he had read close to three-quarters of it without registering a word, and his drooping eyelids were inches from the pages. He had groaned sleepily and gone to bed, only to switch roles and toss and turn for the duration of the night. Finally when the four long tolls from the grandfather clock on the floor below sounded he had thrown off his covers, washed, dressed, mumbled his morning prayers, and descended to the ground floor. He rang the maid. She eventually bustled into the room, still tugging on her dress laces and sleepily rubbing her eyes. She laboriously made him his breakfast – bacon and eggs and beans and buttered toast - and served it before him, but he did not notice. After sitting for a few minutes in front of his cooling food he got up, put on his overcoat, fetched his pistol-case, and left through the heavy wooden door and onto the cobblestone street.
“Ah, the doctor has arrived!” exclaimed Pierson.
The lone figure was trudging along the ready-worn path, carrying his medical chest. He reached the meeting place puffing from his exertions. He was by no account a thin man, and his medical chest looked to be no meager burden.
“Good morning, gentlemen! I trust that you are well?” inquired the doctor cheerfully.
“I am, thank you,” replied Stonebridge, his most reoccurring phrase.
“Presently,” witticised Pierson, “although cold. Any news of the opposition?”
“I saw a carriage following a distance behind me when I was on my way. I suspect it was him, so he ought not to be long.”
The three men stood in silence as the sun began to show herself above the horizon sending brilliant rays across the reflecting snow and silhouetting the distant Martello Tower. Stonebridge stretched and yawned. “I do enjoy the sunrise,” he remarked. The beauty of the orange-stained snow sent him into melancholy thoughts – a man, possibly him, could die today.
Pierson’s jaunty call pulled him back to his senses. The man was growing jollier as the hour of the meeting grew nearer.
“Aha! The enemy is approaching! The sleepy-heads, they took their time!”
Two men were following the tracks of the previous three. “Bonjour, monsieur, cava bien?” asked Raoul d’Carte.
« Oui, merci, » said Stonebridge.
D’Carte was an awkward, shy sort of fellow, and carried himself in a way that made this evident. He was lightly built, with a delicate looking face and watery eyes, over which he wore thinly-framed round-lensed glasses.
“I apologize for our lateness, I dared not leave the house before curfew was risen,” explained d’Carte. Pierson harrumphed. He was not afraid of any curfew.
“Right, gentlemen,” Pierson said, rubbing his hands briskly, “shall we begin?”
“Indeed.”
“Good. Here are the terms of combat. Duelists to stand at fifteen paces…”
Fifteen paces was too short for the situation, thought Stonebridge. Damn Pierson for an eccentric. Stonebridge knew better than to complain, though.
“…armed with two dueling pistols, no longer than nine inches in length of barrel…”
In the case that Pierson was holding were a brace of fine pistols, made for dueling, and which had cost a small fortune. They were Stonebridge’s pride and glory, and, although this would be their first time to see action, they had received plenty of polish and care.
“…the doctor shall count as follows: ‘fire, one, two, three’; no man is to fire before the call of ‘fire’ or after the count of three. If both shots of the first round are misses, the same sequence shall be counted and a second round shall be fired with the second pistols. The combatants shall consider the case resolved if both of these are misses or when one man is struck, the other then being the victor…”
Why was he here again? Ah, yes. It had begun when he had first met d’Carte, at a ball in the château of the Governor. Stonebridge had expressed distaste for the musicianship of the violist in the quartet that was playing, a lady of twenty or so with an uneven nose. D’Carte had overheard this comment and, though he was generally a rather nervous fellow, informed Stonebridge that the lady in question was his niece and that this was her first public performance, and demanded an apology on her part. Being in public and with his honor called to question for insulting a lady, Stonebridge apologized, but did not forget the man’s insolence for shaming him publicly.
“…If one man in anyway cheats or acts dishonorably, the opposing Second has the duty of subduing him in a way appropriate of the situation…”
Later, at another ball, d’Carte, Stonebridge, and several other gentlemen were gossiping of politics when d’Carte expressed his opinion that the city of Quebec ought to be handed to the French as a city-state. This, he explained, would strengthen relations between England and France, allow the continuation of the French Dream in America, and would cost the English little. Stonebridge was indignant and replied fiercely. “Quebec is a strategic stronghold!” he exclaimed, “The French have shown more than once that they are unable to defend her. If she were given to you, the Americans to the south would seize the opportunity and capture her, and then where would we be? It would be the end of the French and British Dreams, for the rest of Canada would follow. No, my dear sir, I am of a mind that, on the contrary, all francophones ought to be deported to a less strategic area so that, in the case of a new American onslaught, they are not in a position to rebel and cause the destruction of us all!” D’Carte was taken much aback, but did not continue his argument.
The rivalry had risen slowly in this manner, slowed further by d’Carte’s lack of confidence. Had he been more out-going he might have challenged Stonebridge at their first meeting, but it had been nearly three long years now that this had been going on, and Stonebridge was ready to welcome any opportunity to put an end to it. After a conversation that had nearly risen to a shouting match, Stonebridge publicly announced d’Carte a “scoundrel, fool, and contemptible coward.” D’Carte knew little of the lore of dueling, but any man of the day knew when a duel was called for, and challenged him in a letter that was delivered by his appointed Second, Fredric Bourbon, the next day. This was exactly what Stonebridge had expected and hoped for. Duels were rather rare in Canada, but they were still surrounded by fantasy and romanticism, and this would end their dispute, if nothing else would. Letters were exchanged over the next four months; until it had reached such a pitch that they had decided that the time was now.
“…Are we all in agreement?” asked Pierson.
“Yes,” confirmed all parties. D’Carte had been listening to Pierson intensively, even leaning foreward and cocking his head slightly, but Stonebridge, already knowing all that had been said, had paid little attention.
The two Seconds measured the distance and loaded the pistols.
“Is all ready?” asked Pierson.
“It is,” answered the combatants.
“Then face!”
Stonebridge removed his overcoat, handed it to Pierson and stood in the snow in his white shirt. It would camouflage him against the snow, and was less burdensome. Bourbon removed his Principal’s jacket and folded it under his arm. In the books of dueling, it was called against the accepted rules to wear glasses, but d’Carte did not know this, and it would be dishonorable for Stonebridge to insist.
Stonebridge stepped into his practiced stance, feet at angle and his left arm folded behind his body. D’Carte held his cheap weapon awkwardly – this was obviously his first time firing a gun.
“Fire!” called the doctor.
The combatants drew back the hammers of their weapons. This would not be the first time that Englishman had faced Frenchman on these fields. The morning sun glinted on the flint-locks.
“One!”
Silence. No one breathed.
“Two!”
The two men pulled their triggers in the same moment. D’Carte’s pistol made a sharp ‘clack!’ Stonebridge’s hammer slammed down, igniting a spark in the pan, and there was a deafening report. D’Carte’s weapon had misfired. He stood; his eyes wide with shock, and reached up to touch his neck. It took a second, but the blood began to pump out in volumes. He choked a wet cough and fell to his knees, his white shirt and the snow around him turning miraculously red. “My God,” whispered Stonebridge, “what have I done?”
He ran foreword, falling to his knees beside the bleeding Frenchman. Hot blood spewed into his face, and he sputtered, grabbing the wounded man’s neck and easing the flow.
“His jugular artery has been hit!” cried the doctor, “Get out of my way - he shall bleed to death if he is not treated immediately!”
“I am sorry,” whispered Stonebridge.
“Non,” d’Carte chocked, his jaw twitching convulsively, “do not be sorry. I shall die now, and I want you to be my friend when I do.”
His glasses had been knocked off into the snow. His eyes were beginning to bulge, either from fear or from the grip on his neck.
“I will, I will, do not worry. You are not going to die, the doctor knows what to do…”
“Stand aside!” shouted the doctor.
“I do not want his treatment. Will you go to explain to my wife and children? Tell them that I am sorry, that it was my fault.”
“You will not die! Do you understand me?” Stonebridge was weeping now.
“Give me your word!” snarled d’Carte, “Give me your word that you will tell them!”
“I give it,” sobbed Stonebridge. He was as hopeless as a young child.
“Bien. And you shall be my friend for ever?”
“I shall.”
“Then all is well. Put my spectacles back on, please. It is a beautiful morning to see.”
There was yet some color in the slowly brightening sky, and the chitter of a squirrel was heard in the distance.
“Let go of my neck,” d’Carte said calmly, “I am ready.”
Stonebridge did not loosen his grip. “It will bleed if I do, and it will weaken you.”
“I care not! Let go.”
Stonebridge was weeping silently, but would not loosen his hold. His hand was growing slippery with dark, thick blood, and his white shirtsleeve was red and wet to the elbow.
“Will you not comply? So be it then.”
He began to laboriously raise his arm, and Stonebridge suddenly realized that d’Carte still held his second pistol.
“Au revoir, mon amie,” he whispered.
The blast rang in Stonebridge’s ears and he reeled back to fall on his hands and knees, up to his elbows in the snow. “No!” he screamed, “You idiot!”
There were bilingual shouts of shock and disbelief. D’Carte had fired his remaining shot through his temple and died instantly. The yells died down and the four remaining men, their chests rising and falling quickly, blowing clouds of vaporizing air out of their lungs, stood staring at the prostrate corpse. “It is as he wished,” said Bourbon, “I was his friend.” The dead man was lying on his back, his eyes wide beneath his round spectacles and his shirt stained red. Bourbon knelt down next to him, shifting the glasses so that he could close his eyelids. The corpse looked strangely calm and composed.
The doctor placed his hand on Stonebridge’s shoulder. “Do not weep,” he comforted Stonebridge, and only then did he realize that tears were forming pale canals through the blood on his face.
The men carried the body to one of the carriages and rode with it back through the city gates. The red-uniformed sentries at the gatehouse, not noticing the body but recognizing the illustrious passengers, saluted. When the men carried d’Carte through the door of his home his wife screamed and the doctor grabbed her as she fainted. “Mother?” called a young voice from up the stairs, “Are you all right?” She was a pretty lady, with long brown curls. Stonebridge wrote a note in French explaining what had happened and stating that he would attend and pay for the funeral and help the family with any debts resulting from the loss of the family man.
When he opened the door to his own residence his wife ran to him and embraced him. She had sat by the door since she had arisen, and, although she was at first afraid that the blood belonged to her husband, she wept to see him safe. He eased her away and said “Maria, I shall never again raise my hand against a fellow human being,” and climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
Kenneth Stonebridge stood on his balcony overhanging the street. Night had fallen, but the lamp-lighter had recently made his rounds. Stonebridge had washed off the blood and wore a new white shirt. In his hand he held the weapon that had shot down Raoul d’Carte, its glistening hammer and barrel flashing golden in the lamplight. His pistol, his most darling piece of materialism, had become a grinning devil. It was like the serpent that had seduced Eve. He held it to his head, felt its cold evil mouth kiss his temple. He stood there for near a minute, his heart scarcely beating, but it seemed to him like hours. His mind was devoid of thoughts and he could feel nothing of his physical body. Then he suddenly became aware of the icy steel on his face and flung it away as if it had been a spider. The weapon clattered to the floor of the balcony and he backed away from it, staring madly. Calming himself, he stooped, picked it up, and brushed it off. He took a last glance at it, then threw it out onto the street. It made no sound as it hit the fresh snow, and Kenneth Stonebridge went to bed.
More snow fell that night and he never saw his once-cherished pistol again.
He commissioned a headstone for his friend, and on it was inscribed the following:
Here lies Raoul d’Carte
Died, 1819 anno domani
Upon the Field of Honor
May he Rest in Peace
The short man had a roundish face and, although he was balding, he had heavy brown side-burns that were flecked with grey. The two were close to the same age, but the taller man looked considerably younger, with a long sleek face, a sharp strait nose and slightly pouting lips. His eye-brows, side-burns, and curling dark locks contrasted heavily with his light, smooth skin.
“I do hope he arrives soon,” exclaimed the short man, hugging himself with his unburdened arm. It was not terribly cold for that hour of the morning, but Walter Pierson was prone to complaining. Kenneth Stonebridge, the taller of the two, did not reply.
“I do not fancy rising this early,” grumbled Pierson, “’tis unnatural for any beast, to mention naught of our more civilized types.”
“I mean not to be offending, my friend, but I am on edge and would rather hear fewer words,” Stonebridge said quietly.
His friend seemed taken aback for a moment, but returned politely. “I understand, Kenneth, unuseful banter is not of want on the Field of Honor. I shall stem the flow of my speech.”
There was a long silence. Their breath was turned to fog by the cold, but Stonebridge did not show any sign that he was feeling the chill.
“Are you at ease, my dear Sir?” asked Pierson.
“I am, thank you Walter.”
The evening before he had remained awake in his study updating his wills, writing letters to his Mother, his Uncle and two of his cousins. He had also brought down several treatises on dueling by various reputable authors, but it was difficult to keep his concentration focused on the printed words, and his mind would float off to think about his wife, his young son, his aging mother. His mortality. But when he once again became aware of the volume before his eyes, he noticed that he had read close to three-quarters of it without registering a word, and his drooping eyelids were inches from the pages. He had groaned sleepily and gone to bed, only to switch roles and toss and turn for the duration of the night. Finally when the four long tolls from the grandfather clock on the floor below sounded he had thrown off his covers, washed, dressed, mumbled his morning prayers, and descended to the ground floor. He rang the maid. She eventually bustled into the room, still tugging on her dress laces and sleepily rubbing her eyes. She laboriously made him his breakfast – bacon and eggs and beans and buttered toast - and served it before him, but he did not notice. After sitting for a few minutes in front of his cooling food he got up, put on his overcoat, fetched his pistol-case, and left through the heavy wooden door and onto the cobblestone street.
“Ah, the doctor has arrived!” exclaimed Pierson.
The lone figure was trudging along the ready-worn path, carrying his medical chest. He reached the meeting place puffing from his exertions. He was by no account a thin man, and his medical chest looked to be no meager burden.
“Good morning, gentlemen! I trust that you are well?” inquired the doctor cheerfully.
“I am, thank you,” replied Stonebridge, his most reoccurring phrase.
“Presently,” witticised Pierson, “although cold. Any news of the opposition?”
“I saw a carriage following a distance behind me when I was on my way. I suspect it was him, so he ought not to be long.”
The three men stood in silence as the sun began to show herself above the horizon sending brilliant rays across the reflecting snow and silhouetting the distant Martello Tower. Stonebridge stretched and yawned. “I do enjoy the sunrise,” he remarked. The beauty of the orange-stained snow sent him into melancholy thoughts – a man, possibly him, could die today.
Pierson’s jaunty call pulled him back to his senses. The man was growing jollier as the hour of the meeting grew nearer.
“Aha! The enemy is approaching! The sleepy-heads, they took their time!”
Two men were following the tracks of the previous three. “Bonjour, monsieur, cava bien?” asked Raoul d’Carte.
« Oui, merci, » said Stonebridge.
D’Carte was an awkward, shy sort of fellow, and carried himself in a way that made this evident. He was lightly built, with a delicate looking face and watery eyes, over which he wore thinly-framed round-lensed glasses.
“I apologize for our lateness, I dared not leave the house before curfew was risen,” explained d’Carte. Pierson harrumphed. He was not afraid of any curfew.
“Right, gentlemen,” Pierson said, rubbing his hands briskly, “shall we begin?”
“Indeed.”
“Good. Here are the terms of combat. Duelists to stand at fifteen paces…”
Fifteen paces was too short for the situation, thought Stonebridge. Damn Pierson for an eccentric. Stonebridge knew better than to complain, though.
“…armed with two dueling pistols, no longer than nine inches in length of barrel…”
In the case that Pierson was holding were a brace of fine pistols, made for dueling, and which had cost a small fortune. They were Stonebridge’s pride and glory, and, although this would be their first time to see action, they had received plenty of polish and care.
“…the doctor shall count as follows: ‘fire, one, two, three’; no man is to fire before the call of ‘fire’ or after the count of three. If both shots of the first round are misses, the same sequence shall be counted and a second round shall be fired with the second pistols. The combatants shall consider the case resolved if both of these are misses or when one man is struck, the other then being the victor…”
Why was he here again? Ah, yes. It had begun when he had first met d’Carte, at a ball in the château of the Governor. Stonebridge had expressed distaste for the musicianship of the violist in the quartet that was playing, a lady of twenty or so with an uneven nose. D’Carte had overheard this comment and, though he was generally a rather nervous fellow, informed Stonebridge that the lady in question was his niece and that this was her first public performance, and demanded an apology on her part. Being in public and with his honor called to question for insulting a lady, Stonebridge apologized, but did not forget the man’s insolence for shaming him publicly.
“…If one man in anyway cheats or acts dishonorably, the opposing Second has the duty of subduing him in a way appropriate of the situation…”
Later, at another ball, d’Carte, Stonebridge, and several other gentlemen were gossiping of politics when d’Carte expressed his opinion that the city of Quebec ought to be handed to the French as a city-state. This, he explained, would strengthen relations between England and France, allow the continuation of the French Dream in America, and would cost the English little. Stonebridge was indignant and replied fiercely. “Quebec is a strategic stronghold!” he exclaimed, “The French have shown more than once that they are unable to defend her. If she were given to you, the Americans to the south would seize the opportunity and capture her, and then where would we be? It would be the end of the French and British Dreams, for the rest of Canada would follow. No, my dear sir, I am of a mind that, on the contrary, all francophones ought to be deported to a less strategic area so that, in the case of a new American onslaught, they are not in a position to rebel and cause the destruction of us all!” D’Carte was taken much aback, but did not continue his argument.
The rivalry had risen slowly in this manner, slowed further by d’Carte’s lack of confidence. Had he been more out-going he might have challenged Stonebridge at their first meeting, but it had been nearly three long years now that this had been going on, and Stonebridge was ready to welcome any opportunity to put an end to it. After a conversation that had nearly risen to a shouting match, Stonebridge publicly announced d’Carte a “scoundrel, fool, and contemptible coward.” D’Carte knew little of the lore of dueling, but any man of the day knew when a duel was called for, and challenged him in a letter that was delivered by his appointed Second, Fredric Bourbon, the next day. This was exactly what Stonebridge had expected and hoped for. Duels were rather rare in Canada, but they were still surrounded by fantasy and romanticism, and this would end their dispute, if nothing else would. Letters were exchanged over the next four months; until it had reached such a pitch that they had decided that the time was now.
“…Are we all in agreement?” asked Pierson.
“Yes,” confirmed all parties. D’Carte had been listening to Pierson intensively, even leaning foreward and cocking his head slightly, but Stonebridge, already knowing all that had been said, had paid little attention.
The two Seconds measured the distance and loaded the pistols.
“Is all ready?” asked Pierson.
“It is,” answered the combatants.
“Then face!”
Stonebridge removed his overcoat, handed it to Pierson and stood in the snow in his white shirt. It would camouflage him against the snow, and was less burdensome. Bourbon removed his Principal’s jacket and folded it under his arm. In the books of dueling, it was called against the accepted rules to wear glasses, but d’Carte did not know this, and it would be dishonorable for Stonebridge to insist.
Stonebridge stepped into his practiced stance, feet at angle and his left arm folded behind his body. D’Carte held his cheap weapon awkwardly – this was obviously his first time firing a gun.
“Fire!” called the doctor.
The combatants drew back the hammers of their weapons. This would not be the first time that Englishman had faced Frenchman on these fields. The morning sun glinted on the flint-locks.
“One!”
Silence. No one breathed.
“Two!”
The two men pulled their triggers in the same moment. D’Carte’s pistol made a sharp ‘clack!’ Stonebridge’s hammer slammed down, igniting a spark in the pan, and there was a deafening report. D’Carte’s weapon had misfired. He stood; his eyes wide with shock, and reached up to touch his neck. It took a second, but the blood began to pump out in volumes. He choked a wet cough and fell to his knees, his white shirt and the snow around him turning miraculously red. “My God,” whispered Stonebridge, “what have I done?”
He ran foreword, falling to his knees beside the bleeding Frenchman. Hot blood spewed into his face, and he sputtered, grabbing the wounded man’s neck and easing the flow.
“His jugular artery has been hit!” cried the doctor, “Get out of my way - he shall bleed to death if he is not treated immediately!”
“I am sorry,” whispered Stonebridge.
“Non,” d’Carte chocked, his jaw twitching convulsively, “do not be sorry. I shall die now, and I want you to be my friend when I do.”
His glasses had been knocked off into the snow. His eyes were beginning to bulge, either from fear or from the grip on his neck.
“I will, I will, do not worry. You are not going to die, the doctor knows what to do…”
“Stand aside!” shouted the doctor.
“I do not want his treatment. Will you go to explain to my wife and children? Tell them that I am sorry, that it was my fault.”
“You will not die! Do you understand me?” Stonebridge was weeping now.
“Give me your word!” snarled d’Carte, “Give me your word that you will tell them!”
“I give it,” sobbed Stonebridge. He was as hopeless as a young child.
“Bien. And you shall be my friend for ever?”
“I shall.”
“Then all is well. Put my spectacles back on, please. It is a beautiful morning to see.”
There was yet some color in the slowly brightening sky, and the chitter of a squirrel was heard in the distance.
“Let go of my neck,” d’Carte said calmly, “I am ready.”
Stonebridge did not loosen his grip. “It will bleed if I do, and it will weaken you.”
“I care not! Let go.”
Stonebridge was weeping silently, but would not loosen his hold. His hand was growing slippery with dark, thick blood, and his white shirtsleeve was red and wet to the elbow.
“Will you not comply? So be it then.”
He began to laboriously raise his arm, and Stonebridge suddenly realized that d’Carte still held his second pistol.
“Au revoir, mon amie,” he whispered.
The blast rang in Stonebridge’s ears and he reeled back to fall on his hands and knees, up to his elbows in the snow. “No!” he screamed, “You idiot!”
There were bilingual shouts of shock and disbelief. D’Carte had fired his remaining shot through his temple and died instantly. The yells died down and the four remaining men, their chests rising and falling quickly, blowing clouds of vaporizing air out of their lungs, stood staring at the prostrate corpse. “It is as he wished,” said Bourbon, “I was his friend.” The dead man was lying on his back, his eyes wide beneath his round spectacles and his shirt stained red. Bourbon knelt down next to him, shifting the glasses so that he could close his eyelids. The corpse looked strangely calm and composed.
The doctor placed his hand on Stonebridge’s shoulder. “Do not weep,” he comforted Stonebridge, and only then did he realize that tears were forming pale canals through the blood on his face.
The men carried the body to one of the carriages and rode with it back through the city gates. The red-uniformed sentries at the gatehouse, not noticing the body but recognizing the illustrious passengers, saluted. When the men carried d’Carte through the door of his home his wife screamed and the doctor grabbed her as she fainted. “Mother?” called a young voice from up the stairs, “Are you all right?” She was a pretty lady, with long brown curls. Stonebridge wrote a note in French explaining what had happened and stating that he would attend and pay for the funeral and help the family with any debts resulting from the loss of the family man.
When he opened the door to his own residence his wife ran to him and embraced him. She had sat by the door since she had arisen, and, although she was at first afraid that the blood belonged to her husband, she wept to see him safe. He eased her away and said “Maria, I shall never again raise my hand against a fellow human being,” and climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
Kenneth Stonebridge stood on his balcony overhanging the street. Night had fallen, but the lamp-lighter had recently made his rounds. Stonebridge had washed off the blood and wore a new white shirt. In his hand he held the weapon that had shot down Raoul d’Carte, its glistening hammer and barrel flashing golden in the lamplight. His pistol, his most darling piece of materialism, had become a grinning devil. It was like the serpent that had seduced Eve. He held it to his head, felt its cold evil mouth kiss his temple. He stood there for near a minute, his heart scarcely beating, but it seemed to him like hours. His mind was devoid of thoughts and he could feel nothing of his physical body. Then he suddenly became aware of the icy steel on his face and flung it away as if it had been a spider. The weapon clattered to the floor of the balcony and he backed away from it, staring madly. Calming himself, he stooped, picked it up, and brushed it off. He took a last glance at it, then threw it out onto the street. It made no sound as it hit the fresh snow, and Kenneth Stonebridge went to bed.
More snow fell that night and he never saw his once-cherished pistol again.
He commissioned a headstone for his friend, and on it was inscribed the following:
Here lies Raoul d’Carte
Died, 1819 anno domani
Upon the Field of Honor
May he Rest in Peace
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