"I shall meet him with any kind of weapons he may name."
"Of course you understand that I have no feeling, Merry, old man," he said; "but Diamond has chosen me as his second once more, and so I can't refuse to serve him. It is a most unfortunate affair, but he insists that you fight him with rapiers."
"Very well; I agree to that. Arrange the time and place with my second, Mr. Rattleton."
Frank sat down, picked up an illustrated paper, and seemed deeply interested in the pictures.
"My principal," said he, swelling with importance, "demands that this meeting take place at once."
"Great Scott!" exploded Harry. "I object to this sort of business. It is outrageous! If one of them should be seriously wounded, what excuse can be made?"
"But what if one of them should be killed?"
"I hardly think anything as serious as that will occur."
"But should it, there would be an investigation, and expulsion and disgrace, if nothing worse, would overtake us."
"Oh, well, if you are afraid, just go back and tell Mr. Merriwell to apologize here and now, and I think Mr. Diamond will let him off."
Harry looked at Merriwell and then shook his head.
"He'll never do that," he said, hoarsely. "We'll have to arrange this duel. There is no other way for it."
Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three blood runs hot and swift in the veins of a youth. It is then that he will do many wild and reckless things--things which will cause him to stand appalled when he considers them in after years.
Frank believed that in order to retain his own self respect and the respect of his comrades he must meet Diamond and give him satisfaction in any manner he might designate.
But there was another reason why Frank was so willing to meet the Virginian. Merriwell was an expert fencer. At Fardale he had been the champion of the school, and he had taken some lessons while traveling. He had thoroughly studied the trick of disarming his adversary, a trick which is known to every French fencing master, but is thought little of by them.
He believed that he could repeatedly disarm Diamond.
His adventures in various parts of the world had made him somewhat less cautious than he naturally would have been and so he trusted everything to his ability to get the best of the Virginian.