“In short,” said he, “Sanchez (mark, now, what great names I am quoting to you!) Sanchez, sir, goes a step further; for he shows how, simply by managing the intention rightly, a person may not only receive a challenge, but give one. And our Escobar follows him.” “Prove that, father,” said I, “and I shall give up the point: but I will not believe that he has written it, unless I see it in print.” “Read it yourself, then,” he replied: and, to be sure, I read the following extract from the Moral Theology of Sanchez: “It is perfectly reasonable to hold that a man may fight a duel to save his life, his honor, or any considerable portion of his property, when it is apparent that there is a design to deprive him of these unjustly, by law-suits and chicanery, and when there is no other way of preserving them. Navarre justly observes, that in such cases, it is lawful either to accept or to send a challenge—_licet acceptare et offerre duellum_. The same author adds, that there is nothing to prevent one from despatching one’s adversary in a private way. Indeed, in the circumstances referred to, it is advisable to avoid employing the method of the duel, if it is possible to settle the affair by privately killing our enemy; for, by this means, we escape at once from exposing our life in the combat, and from participating in the sin which our opponent would have committed by fighting the duel!”[168] “A most pious assassination!” said I. “Still, however, pious though it be, it is assassination, if a man is permitted to kill his enemy in a treacherous manner.” “Did I say that he might kill him treacherously?” cried the monk. “God forbid! I said he might kill him _privately_, and you conclude that he may kill him _treacherously_, as if that were the same thing! Attend, sir, to Escobar’s definition before allowing yourself to speak again on this subject: ‘We call it killing in treachery, when the person who is slain had no reason to suspect such a fate. He, therefore, that slays his _enemy_ cannot be said to kill him in treachery, even although the blow should be given insidiously and behind his back—_licet per insidias aut a tergo percutiat_.’ And again: ‘He that kills his enemy, with whom he was reconciled under a promise of never again attempting his life, cannot be _absolutely_ said to kill in treachery, unless there was between them all the stricter friendship—_arctior amicitia_.’[169] You see now, you do not even understand what the terms signify, and yet you pretend to talk like a doctor.” “I grant you this is something quite new to me,” I replied; “and I should gather from that definition that few, if any, were ever killed in treachery; for people seldom take it into their heads to assassinate any but their enemies. Be this as it may, however, it seems that, according to Sanchez, a man may freely slay (I do not say _treacherously_, but only insidiously, and behind his back) a calumniator, for example, who prosecutes us at law?”