CHAPTER XXVII--MODERN DUELLING
Barely had Sheldon reached the Balesuna, when he heard the faint report
of a distant rifle and knew it was the signal of Tudor, giving notice
that he had reached the Berande, turned about, and was coming back.
Sheldon fired his rifle into the air in answer, and in turn proceeded to
advance. He moved as in a dream, absent-mindedly keeping to the open
beach. The thing was so preposterous that he had to struggle to realize
it, and he reviewed in his mind the conversation with Tudor, trying to
find some clue to the common-sense of what he was doing. He did not want
to kill Tudor. Because that man had blundered in his love-making was no
reason that he, Sheldon, should take his life. Then what was it all
about? True, the fellow had insulted Joan by his subsequent remarks and
been knocked down for it, but because he had knocked him down was no
reason that he should now try to kill him.
In this fashion he covered a quarter of the distance between the two
rivers, when it dawned upon him that Tudor was not on the beach at all.
Of course not. He was advancing, according to the terms of the
agreement, in the shelter of the cocoanut trees. Sheldon promptly
swerved to the left to seek similar shelter, when the faint crack of a
rifle came to his ears, and almost immediately the bullet, striking the
hard sand a hundred feet beyond him, ricochetted and whined onward on a
second flight, convincing him that, preposterous and unreal as it was, it
was nevertheless sober fact.
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