"You have heard the charge laid against you. What have you to say in defense?" questioned the squire.
"Nothing. The charge is substantially true, barring the bad names with which the witness has complimented me. I deny that I am a 'warmint,' a 'wild cat,' a 'wolf,' a 'tiger,' a 'panther' or a 'rhine-horse-o-rus,'" said Le, laughing; "but I wrote the challenge, and I intended to fight the duel."
Le dropped into the only vacant chair, and awaited the next move.
"Roland Bayard, come forward," said the squire.
The young man came, and stood respectfully before the squire.
"You have heard the charges made against you?"
"Nothing, except in some sort what my fellow prisoner there has said. In a word, I may be, as Darwin says, remotely descended from a monkey, but I certainly must decline identity, or even relationship, to the wild beasts with which my good aunt has confounded me. But I did undertake to deliver a challenge from my friend Mr. Leonidas Force to that caitiff Angus Anglesea, and I did intend to be my friend's second in the duel."
The young midshipman stepped up and stood beside his friend, both facing the squire.
And then Mr. Force began, in the most earnest and solemn manner, to speak to them of the sin and evil of dueling; of the falsehood and insanity of calling such a crime an "affair of honor," when, in truth, it was a matter of dishonor. The very highest concern of a true man of honor is to keep the law of God, which the duelist breaks; and to keep the law of the land, which the duelist breaks. The duelist may have many motives, but "honor" cannot be one of them! A bully will fight a duel, upon occasion, to prove himself a man of brute courage, and kill or be killed for so low a cause. A coward will fight a duel, because he is afraid to refuse, on account of what bullies might say of him, and kill, or be killed, from so mean a motive. A man maddened by wrongs, and raging with wrath, will fight a duel to be revenged upon his adversary, to slay or to be slain, and is eager to risk his own life, in the hope of taking his enemy's. But no man ever fought a duel from any motive of pure honor. There is no honor in breaking the laws of the Lord, or the laws of the land, but rather dishonor.