Tom Durfy and Dick the Devil soon settled the preliminaries of the ground and mode of firing, and twelve paces having been marked, both the seconds opened their pistol-cases and prepared to load. Andy was close to Dick all the time, kneeling beside the pistol-case, which lay on the sod; and as Dick turned round to settle some other point on which Tom Durfy questioned him, Andy thought he might snatch the opportunity of giving his master "the chance" he suggested to his second. "Sure, if Misther Dick wouldn't like to do it, that's no raison I wouldn't," said Andy to himself, "and, by the powers! I'll pop in a ball _onknownst_ to him." And, sure enough, Andy contrived, while the seconds were engaged with each other, to put a ball into each pistol before the barrel was loaded with powder, so that when Dick took up his pistols to load, a bullet lay between the powder and the touch-hole. Now, this must have been discovered by Dick, had he been cool: but he and Tom Durfy had wrangled very much about the point they had been discussing, and Dick, at no time the quietest person in the world, was in such a rage that the pistols were loaded by him without noticing Andy's ingenious interference, and he handed a harmless weapon to his brother-in-law when he placed him on his ground. The word was given. Murtough, following his friend's advice, fired instantly--bang he went, while the squire returned but a flash in the pan. He turned a look of reproach upon Dick, who took the pistol silently from him, and handed him the other, having carefully looked to the priming after the accident which happened to the first. Durfy handed his man another pistol also; and before he left his side, said in a whisper, "Don't forget--have the first fire." Again the word was given. Murphy blazed away a rapid and harmless shot; for his hurry was the squire's safety, while Andy's murderous intentions were his salvation. "D----n the pistol!" said the squire, throwing it down in a rage. Dick took it up with manifest indignation, and d----d the powder. "Your powder's damp, Ned." "No, it's not," said the squire, "it's you who have bungled the loading." "Me!" said Dick, with a look of mingled rage and astonishment. "_I_ bungle the loading of pistols! _I_, that have stepped more ground and arranged more affairs than any man in the country! Arrah, be aisy, Ned!" Tom Durfy now interfered, and said for the present it was no matter, as, on the part of his friend, he begged to express himself satisfied. "But it's very hard _we_'re not to have a shot," said Dick, poking the touch-hole of the pistol with a pricker, which he had just taken from the case which Andy was holding before him. "Why, my dear Dick," said Durfy, "as Murphy has had two shots, and the squire has not had the return of either, he declares he will not fire at him again; and, under these circumstances, I must take my man off the ground."