'I believe I'm a dead man,' my lord said from the ground. 'No, no, not so,' says the other; 'and I call God to witness, Frank Esmond, that I would have asked your pardon, had you but given me a chance. In--in the first cause of our falling out, I swear that no one was to blame but me, and--and that my lady----' 'Hush!' says my poor Lord Viscount, lifting himself on his elbow and speaking faintly. 'Twas a dispute about the cards--the cursed cards. Harry, my boy, are you wounded too? God help thee! I loved thee, Harry, and thou must watch over my little Frank--and--and carry this little heart to my wife.' And here my dear lord felt in his breast for a locket he wore there, and, in the act, fell back fainting. We were all at this terrified, thinking him dead; but Esmond and Colonel Westbury bade the chairmen come into the field; and so my lord was carried to one Mr. Aimes, a surgeon, in Long Acre, who kept a bath, and there the house was wakened up, and the victim of this quarrel carried in. FOOTNOTES: [31] Charles, fifth Baron Mohun (1675?-1712), was the eldest son of the fourth baron, who died from a wound received in a duel when his son was about two years old. He fought his first duel in 1692, breaking out of his lodgings, where he was confined in consequence of a quarrel over dice, for the purpose, with the assistance of the Earl of Warwick of the present case, the grandson of the Lord Holland of the Civil War. This encounter ended in both combatants being disarmed. Two days later he abetted in the murder of Mountfort, an actor. One Captain Hill was in love with Mrs. Bracegirdle, the famous actress, and supposed that he had cause to be jealous of the attentions she received from Mountfort, the equally eminent actor. Accordingly Hill and Mohun formed a plan (estimated to cost £50 in all) to carry off the lady as she came out of the theatre: and providing themselves with a coach-and-six and a body of soldiers set out on the enterprise. They missed Mrs. Bracegirdle at the theatre, but found her by chance coming out of a house in Drury Lane where she had supped. The attempt to carry her off in the coach failed, owing to the vigorous resistance made by her friends. Hill and Mohun, however, were allowed to escort her to her lodgings in Howard Street, where they saw her safely home. Mountfort lived in Norfolk Street, at the bottom of Howard Street; and as he was passing down the latter some two hours later, he was accosted by Mohun in a more or less friendly way; but while they were talking together, he was attacked and killed by Hill, who did not give him time to draw his sword. Hill fled, but Mohun was tried by his peers in Westminster Hall, January 1692-93. The trial excited great interest partly owing to the youth of the prisoner, and on a question being raised as to the degree of complicity necessary to constitute his guilt, he was acquitted.