"Jules Verne. Off on a Comet. WORKS" - читать интересную книгу автора

and for two months the Russian standard had been seen floating from her yard,
whilst on her mast-head was hoisted the pennant of the French Yacht Club,
with the distinctive letters M. C. W. T., the initials of Count Timascheff.

Having entered the town, Captain Servadac made his way towards Matmore,
the military quarter, and was not long in finding two friends
on whom he might rely--a major of the 2nd Fusileers, and a captain
of the 8th Artillery. The two officers listened gravely enough
to Servadac's request that they would act as his seconds in an affair
of honor, but could not resist a smile on hearing that the dispute
between him and the count had originated in a musical discussion.
Surely, they suggested, the matter might be easily arranged; a few
slight concessions on either side, and all might be amicably adjusted.
But no representations on their part were of any avail.
Hector Servadac was inflexible.

"No concession is possible," he replied, resolutely. "Rossini has
been deeply injured, and I cannot suffer the injury to be unavenged.
Wagner is a fool. I shall keep my word. I am quite firm."

"Be it so, then," replied one of the officers; "and after all,
you know, a sword-cut need not be a very serious affair."

"Certainly not," rejoined Servadac; "and especially in my case,
when I have not the slightest intention of being wounded at all."

Incredulous as they naturally were as to the assigned cause of the quarrel,
Servadac's friends had no alternative but to accept his explanation,
and without farther parley they started for the staff office, where, at two
o'clock precisely, they were to meet the seconds of Count Timascheff.
Two hours later they had returned. All the preliminaries had been arranged;
the count, who like many Russians abroad was an aide-de-camp of the Czar,
had of course proposed swords as the most appropriate weapons, and the duel
was to take place on the following morning, the first of January, at nine
o'clock, upon the cliff at a spot about a mile and a half from the mouth
of the Shelif. With the assurance that they would not fail to keep their
appointment with military punctuality, the two officers cordially wrung
their friend's hand and retired to the Zulma Cafe for a game at piquet.
Captain Servadac at once retraced his steps and left the town.

For the last fortnight Servadac had not been occupying his proper lodgings
in the military quarters; having been appointed to make a local levy,
he had been living in a gourbi, or native hut, on the Mostaganem coast,
between four and five miles from the Shelif. His orderly was his
sole companion, and by any other man than the captain the enforced exile
would have been esteemed little short of a severe penance.

On his way to the gourbi, his mental occupation was a very
laborious effort to put together what he was pleased to call
a rondo, upon a model of versification all but obsolete.