Staretsky had faced quickly round, dragging Soltyk. Kreisler was covering them with the Browning. “Halt!” he shouted. “Stop there! Not so quickly! I will shoot you like a dog if you will not fight!” Still holding them up, he ordered Bitzenko to take over to them one of the revolvers provided for the duel. “That will be murder! If you assist in this, sir, you will be participating in a murder! Stop this⸺” Staretsky was jabbering at Bitzenko, his arm through his friend’s. Soltyk stood wiping his face with his hand, his eyes on the ground. His breath came heavily, and he kept shifting his feet. Bitzenko’s tall young Russian stood in a twisted attitude, a gargoyle Apollo. His mask of peasant tragedy had broken into a slight smile. “Move and I fire! Move and I fire!” Kreisler kept shouting, moving up towards them, with stealthy grogginess. He kept shaking the revolver and pointing at them with the other hand, to keep them alive to the reality of the menace. “Don’t touch the pistols, Louis!” said Staretsky, as Bitzenko came over with his leather dispatch-case. He let go of Soltyk’s arm and folded his own. “Don’t touch them, Louis. They daren’t shoot!” Louis appeared apathetic both as to the pistols and the good advice. “Leave him both,” Kreisler called, his revolver still trained on Staretsky and Soltyk. Bitzenko put them both down, a foot away from Soltyk, and walked hurriedly out of the zone of fire. “Will you take up one of those pistols, or both?” Kreisler said. “Kindly point that revolver somewhere else, and allow us to go!” Staretsky said loudly. “I’m not speaking to you, pig-face! It’s _you_ I’m addressing. Take up that pistol!” He was now five or six yards from them. “Herr Soltyk is unarmed! The pistols you want him to take only have one charge. Yours has twelve. In any case it would be murder!” Kreisler walked up to them. He was very white, much quieter, and acted with effort. He stooped down to take up one of the pistols. Staretsky aimed a blow at his head. It caught him just in front of the ear, on the right cheek-bone. He staggered sideways, tripped, and fell. The moment he felt the blow he pulled the trigger of the Browning, which still pointed towards his principal adversary. Soltyk threw his arms up: Kreisler was struggling towards his feet: he fell face forwards on top of him. Kreisler thought this was a new attack. He seized Soltyk’s body round the middle, rolling over on top of it. It was quite limp. He then thought the other man had fainted; ruptured himself⸺? He drew back quickly. Two hands grasped him and flung him down on his stomach. This time his glasses went. Scrambling after them, he remembered his Browning, which he had dropped. He shot his hands out to left and right—forgetting his glasses—to recover the Browning. He felt that a blow was a long time in coming. “He’s dead! He’s dead! He’s dead!” Staretsky’s voice, announcing that in French, he heard at the same time as Bitzenko’s saying: