"Ah, Captain Lewrie!" the older gentleman, a Mr. Hendricks, and a well-respected squire, planter, and magistrate, called out of a sudden, as if to draw his attention to the immediate field, which made Lewrie even more suspicious. As his second, Lewrie literally held Cashman's honour and safety in his hands, not merely the pettifogging details of well-established custom, usage, and punctilio.
"Mister Hendricks, good morning, sir," Lewrie replied, halting short of the inviting table-tables, he took note. There were four, in all, three in one row, well separated from one another, with the one in the centre draped in white cloth and agleam with a surgeon's field kit of instruments, the vials, powders, and such with which to save the life of the loser. The farthest table bore two cases of pistols, two pairs of long-barreled death. Their table-so far-was bare.
"You know Mister Trollope, the surgeon."
"Sir," Lewrie intoned, doffing his hat.
"Captain Sellers, of course, Colonel Beauman's second."
"Captain Sellers."
"Captain Lewrie," that weedy worthy answered with the merest tilt of his head and a hand that just approached his own cocked hat in a returning salute, his tone icy and top-lofty, looking down his nose.
Kin o' the dead man, o' course, Lewrie told himself; 'spose he has cause t'look gloomy, knowin' his cousin's about t'get knackered.
"Geratt, the surgeon's assistant." Hendricks went on, waving an arm in the general direction of a mousy little fuss-budget with his hands held rodent-like in the middle of his chest. "And Mister Hugh Beauman."
"Sir," Lewrie solemnly said in greeting, with a faint bow and another doff of his hat. He was surprised that the elder brother gave him a doff and bow of equal courtesy… since he looked as if he had breakfasted on glass splinters and was trying to pass them without a roar of agony. His grimace was worthy of a hanged spaniel.
"Your principal, Colonel Cashman, is come, sir?" Mr. Hendricks softly enquired, sounding the opening bars of the "dance of honour."
"He has, sir," Lewrie formally intoned, casting his eyes to the slim fop, Captain Sellers. "And yours, Captain Sellers?" Lewrie asked (rather politely, he thought!), but Sellers, still clad in his full regimentals, despite the fact that the 15th West Indies had been mustered out a month before, took umbrage and looked even farther down his nose.
"Damn you, he has, sir!" Sellers shot back. "The Colonel is more than ready!"
"Tut, now, Captain Sellers," Hendricks mournfully chid him with a grimace of distaste. "Decorum, hmm?"
"Aye," Lewrie could not help tacking on to nettle the little bantam cock, his eyes gone wintry steel-grey despite the feral grin on his face. "Someone's about t'die, the next few minutes. 'Twas 'blaze 'til death or severe wounding,' d'ye recall, sir? And… do you prefer the pretence of still holding active commission, mind that I out-rank you… and tread wary… sir."
"Now see here…!" Sellers spluttered, one hand upon the hilt of his smallsword-his left, Lewrie took note with a smirk of derision, not the right, with which to draw it and do anything.
"Gentlemen, please-!" Mr. Hendricks objected, meekly scandalised by their behaviour.
"Damn yer eyes, Lewrie!" Hugh Beauman barked in a husky basso. "Impertinent… swaggerin', damme-boy… tcha!"
It must have been born in the blood, that all the Beauman men chopped their thoughts into the pithiest shards of sentences that stood in the stead of another man's entire full minute of prosing!
"Mister Beauman, please," Hendricks insisted, recalling his own dignities in Jamaican Society. "The both of you, sirs… for shame!"
"My pardons, sir, but Captain Sellers rowed me beyond all temperance," Lewrie was first to apologise, doffing his hat again. "I do not yet feel need to demand his apology… or satisfaction for such a slight upon the field on honour. You have my abject apology, sir."
Think that'un over, toady/ Lewrie smugly thought, bestowing his best beatific smile on Hendricks, his Number One "shit-eatin' grin" on Sellers. You wish it, we'll make this like a double weddin'! Two for the price of one!
Hendricks rounded slowly on Capt. Sellers, who could do nothing but flummox, redden, fidget, and bob his head as he mumbled like sentiments over his error.
"The occasion for two gentlemen to meet upon the field of honour is a sad, regrettable, yet solemn, uhm, occasion," Mr. Hendricks gloomily intoned. "And there is no place for…"
Christ on a crutch, he makes it sound like a wedding preamble! Lewrie thought, lowering his head and biting the lining of his cheeks to keep from snickering, despite all solemnity. 'Does anyone object t 'these two lunaticks blowin' their guts out, speak now, or forever hold yer peace?' Gawd!
"I charge you now, sirs, is there not another course of action by which the parties may obtain satisfaction without the useless effusion of blood? " Hendricks almost chanted, sounding more like a judge or priest than a referee. "Even at this last moment, can we not walk away after shaking hands, and forgive all enmities? Captain Lewrie?"
"I regret that there is not, Mister Hendricks," Lewrie replied. "My principal is adamant that both public, and private, slurs against his character and military prowess, his pride and his honour, have no other recourse. The hurt inflicted is too grievous."
"Captain Sellers? Mister Beauman, as his brother-"
"The Colonel stands by his account of his actions on Saint Domingue, sir, and is in no wise responsible for the characterisations in the papers, nor the rumours in Society, but holds steadfast to his opinion of his former subordinate's behaviour as the truth of the matter. Therefore, he cannot, and will not, retreat from his position without a grievous loss of his own honour and credence," Capt. Sellers recited, his speech all but written on his coat cuff, Lewrie suspected, and rehearsed all the previous day and in the coach on the way here. Well, somebody's doomed, then, Lewrie glumly thought. Neither man could demur without suffering the ultimate penalties. The label of Coward or Poltroon would be the worst, with Liar and Weasel coming in strong seconds. Did Ledyard Beauman withdraw, he'd not only become a pariah in Jamaica and the entire Caribbean, but in England as well, did he scurry there to hide his shame. His supposedly "accurate" account of the 15th's role outside Port-au-Prince would be exposed as the total fabrication it was, and the entire Beauman clan would become a laughingstock.
"Mister Beauman?" Hendricks pressed in a near-whisper. "Stands by it," Hugh Beauman nigh-growled, stone-faced. " 'Tis too late now. Duel it is. Be about it, hey?"
Damn my eyes, but the bastard's good as slain his brother, for his own damn' pride! Lewrie gawped to himself; 'twas Hugh who made him soldier, knowin' he'd be hopeless.
"Having failed to reconcile the gentlemen, we must proceed," Mr. Hendricks ceremoniously announced; like a Romish priest who, the weekly notices over, reverts to Latin for the daily offices of the Mass. "The agreement is for the exchange of fire from pistols at fifteen paces… the principals to continue firing until such time as one, or both, are mortally struck or incapable of continuing. Those are still the conditions, sirs?" he asked Sellers and Lewrie, peering at each in turn. "It is, sir," both seconds intoned, almost as one, putting Alan in mind of Divine Services, again-"The Lord be with you" from the vicar, the congregants responding "And also with you."