It was no even conflict, no trial of skill—three deadly passes of the sailor, as straight and almost as swift as lightning, with a blade so strong, and a wrist so adamantine, that no slight of Jasper’s could divert them, were sent home in tierce—one in his throat, “That for your lie!” shouted Durzil; a second in the sword arm, “That for your coward blow!” a third, which clove the very cavity of his heart asunder, “That for your life!” Ten seconds did not pass, from the first crossing of their blades until Jasper lay dead upon the floor, flooding his own hearth-stone with his life-blood. Durzil leaned on his avenging blade, and looked down upon the dead. “It is done! it is done just in time! But just! for I am sped likewise. May the Great God have mercy on me, and pardon me my sins, as I did this thing not in hatred, but in justice and in honor! Ah—I am sick—sick!” And he dropped down into the arm-chair in which Jasper was sitting as he entered; and though he could hardly hold his head up for the deadly faintness, and the reeling of his eyes and brain, by a great effort he drew out the marriage record from his breast—Jasper’s ball had pierced it, and it was dappled with his own life-blood—and smoothed it out fairly, and spread it on the board before him. Then he fell back, and closed his eyes, and lay for a long time motionless; but the slow, sick throbbing of his heart showed that he was yet alive, though passing rapidly away. Once he raised his dim eyes, and murmured, “They tarry—they tarry very long. I fear me, they will come too late.” But within ten minutes after he had spoken, the sound of a multitude might be heard approaching, and a quick, strong, decided step of one man coming on before all the rest. Within the last few minutes, Durzil had seemed to lose all consciousness and power. He was, indeed, all but dead. But at these sounds he roused like a dying war-horse to the trumpet; and as the quick step crossed the threshold, he staggered to his feet, drew his hand across his eyes, and cried, with his old sonorous voice,—it was his last effort— “Is that you, lieutenant?” “Ay, ay, captain.” “Have you found her?” “She is here,” said the young seaman, pointing with his hand to the corpse, which they were just bearing into the room. “And he—ha! ha! ha! ha!—he is—there!” and he pointed, with a triumphant wafture of his gory sword, toward Jasper’s carcass, and then, with the blood spouting from his mouth and nostrils, fell headlong. His officer raised him instantly, and as the flow of blood ceased, he recovered his speech for a moment. He pointed to the gaping crowd, “Have—have you—told them—lieu—lieutenant?” “No, sir.” “Tell—tell them—l-let me hear you.”