The Rape of Venice by Dennis Wheatley Page A

not. But pikes, Ned! Where will we get them?’
    There are a score or more to choose from among the arms that decorate the walls of the billiards room.’
    â€˜So be it, then. What about a doctor?’
    â€˜Knowing Dr. Chudleigh to be the household leech here, I’ve sent a note down to the village requesting him to attend upon us. Beckford refused to act with Sheridan as the Venetian’s other second; so the groom who is carrying my note to Dr. Chudleigh also bears one from Sheridan to Major Rawton at the Red House. I gather the Major is a fire-eater of the first water, so the odds on him refusing Sheridan’s request are negligible. It remains only for you to provide yourself with another second.’
    Roger turned to the Colonel. ‘If you would honour me, Sir?’
    â€˜Certainly, my dear boy,’ came the prompt response. ‘Did I have to wait here to learn the outcome of this meeting, I’d be consumed with anxiety; now at least I’ll learn it the moment it becomes apparent.’
    They talked on till the clock chimed twelve, then the Colonel’s two visitors wished him ‘good-night’. Droopy told Roger that he had arranged for his man to call them both at five o’clock and, after agreeing to meet down in the hall at a quarter-to-six, they separated to go to their rooms.
    While undressing, Roger’s thoughts were no longer on the duel, but on Georgina. As he was to be called at five o’clock there was no way in which he could conceal from her that it was to take place, and he knew that she would be greatly distressed about it. Resigning himself to a prospect of expostulationsand argument, he put on his flowered silk chamber-robe, and went through to her.
    She was sitting up in bed and had a book open on her lap, but she was not reading. He had hardly closed the door of the boudoir, before she asked impatiently, ‘Well! Have you made an end of this wretched affair?’
    â€˜Not quite,’ he gave a disarming smile. ‘But I hope to have before you wake in the morning.’
    She stiffened. ‘You mean that ...’
    â€˜I mean, my love, that, through this pestiferous fellow, I am forced to suffer another and greater injury. On his account I’ll be able to spend no more than an hour with you tonight; for I must get a few hours’ sleep and am to be called at five o’clock.’
    â€˜You insisted on fighting, then?’
    â€˜â€™Twas not my wish; but I had no alternative.’
    â€˜Oh God! What fools you men are!’ Georgina burst out. ‘You call such meetings seeking satisfaction, yet only too often it’s the offended party who gets skewered for his pains. There’s neither justice nor fairness in it; for, right or wrong, the victor is he who’s had most experience with weapons, and many an honest father of a family has met his death at the hands of an impudent young blackguard, because he felt in honour bound to call him out.’
    â€˜In this case the blackguard is the older party, and I’d be much surprised, if, by this time tomorrow, Susan finds herself an orphan.’
    â€˜Lud man! I’m not scared for you. At least, no more than any woman would be for her lover when he’s about to expose himself to some chance injury. Pitted against a man so formidable with arms as you, the poor wretch will be lucky if he gets off with a month in bed nursing a slashed face or a punctured lung.’
    â€˜Nay; I’ve no intention of causing him grevious harm. I mean to disarm him if I can.’
    She gave him a puzzled look. ‘If you will be so easily satisfied, it makes this meeting even more senseless. Surely you would have done better when you got up from the floor to return him blow for blow. He’d not have hit you a second time, I’ll be bound; and you could have left it at that.’
    â€˜Had we been in Russia, that is just what I would have done. The nobility there indulge