Adventures (18 page)

“Pistols!” said the Major. “Pistols at the count of ten.”

“This is silly, Major,” I said. “I ain't never fired a pistol in my life, and you ain't never made close friends with anyone who could count all the way up to ten.”

“Humbug!” cried the Major. “You're trying to make a farce out of this just to hide your cowardice!”

“And you're trying to make a duel out of it because you know you ain't got a chance next to a handsome young buck like me,” I said. “Begging your pardon for being so immodest and truthful, ma'am.”

“May I say something?” asked Emily, who had been looking more and more upset.

“I'm afraid not, my dear,” said the Major. “This is an
affaire d'honneur
now.”

“But what if I don't want to marry the winner?” she said.

“That's absolutely unheard of!” snapped Major Dobbins.

“I got to agree with the Major,” I said. “If I actually get around to risking my life for your hand, I'd just naturally expect the rest of you to come with it.

“It's
my
hand,” she pointed out.

“But it's
our
duel,” replied the Major. “Women simply don't understand these things.”

“Now just a minute!” said Emily hotly.

“Madame, I love you with a mad undying passion that admits of no doubt or weakness,” said the Major, placing a hand to his heart. “And I cannot in good conscience allow this scoundrel to turn your head and destroy your chance for happiness, to say nothing of the detrimental influence he would have on young Horace, of whom I could not be more fond if he were my own son.”

I must confess that I shared his sentiments about Horace, and would have been hard pressed to name a situation that could have made me any fonder of him either, especially if he were my own son.

Well, Miss Emily kind of softened when she hear the Major's declaration of love and high purpose, which forced me to make a similar one, and she finally agreed as to how sometimes affairs of honor were kind of honorable.

“But I do have one small request, Theodore,” she said.

“Whatever you wish, my dead,” he replied smoothly.

“Could you fight your duel at noon instead of sunrise?”

“Certainly,” he said. “But why?”

“I thought we might hold it at the racetrack and charge a little something extra for admission. The missions in Chad and the Sudan could surely use the money, and somehow all this won't seem so futile if it serves a good purpose.”

“Ah, what a rare treasure one of us is going to be marrying, eh?” smiled the Major.

“True,” I agreed. “And what a lovely woman comes with it.”

The Major harrumphed a couple of times and then got to his feet. “Excuse me, one and all, but I think I'd best be returning to my apartments,” he announced.

“But it's only eight o'clock,” protested Emily in hurt tones.

“True,” he acknowledged. “But I plan to have a hard day of butchery and bloodletting tomorrow, and I do that sort of thing best after a good night's sleep. Why not come along with me, Doctor Jones? We can toast one another's good if brief health a few times, and you won't be besmirching our dearly beloved lady's reputation by spending the night here without a chaperone.”

“I'd like to oblige you, Major,” I said, “but someone ought to stay here to protect our fragile flower from jungle beasts and other night critters. Don't feel badly about not thinking of it yourself, though; it's the kind of thought that would only occur to a decent and dedicated young missionary.”

He glared at me for a couple of minutes, then turned on his heel and left. By the time Emily and I got back to the dining room we found Horace sitting at the table, working on his fourth piece of pie.

“You gonna fight for my mum?” he asked between mouthfuls.

“It sure appears that that's the course the Lord has in mind for me,” I said. “Will you be rooting for me, Horace?”

“Don't know,” he said, downing a quart of milk in a single swallow. “Have to see the morning line first.”

“Horace!” said Emily.

“Just boyish enthusiasm,” I said, tousling his hair and dislodging a couple of flies in the process. “He'll outgrow it if he lives long enough.”

We went out to the parlor and had a sip or two of brandy, and then I was shown to my room. It seemed that my head had hardly hit the pillow before Horace was shaking me and telling me to hurry up or else I'd be late for the duel.

“Well, they can't start without me,” I muttered, sitting up on the bed.

“I laid twenty shillings on the Major at one-to-two,” said Horace, “and I don't win if you forfeit.”

I thanked the little ghoul for his concern, dressed as quickly as I could, and walked down to the kitchen, where Emily was frying up some eggs.

“No time for eating, Mum!” cried Horace, grabbing my arm and dragging me to the door. “We're late!”

“But...” said Emily.

“We're
late!
” repeated Horace, almost in a panic.

She sighed, shrugged, and followed us out to a carriage, which Horace had already attached to a couple of horses. We flew down the streets of Durban as if we were being pulled by Exterminator and Old Rosebud, and within twenty minutes or so we pulled up at the racetrack. Major Dobbins was waiting for us at the finish line with the track steward.

“My dear Doctor Jones,” he said, extending his hand as we approached him. “I trust you slept well. You know, I have been giving the matter considerable thought, and have concluded that this is really a rather barbaric way of settling our little dispute.”

“My own sentiments exactly,” I said.

“Would you consider some other means of so doing?” he asked.

“Such as?”

“We could cut a deck of cards,” he said, producing just such a deck.

“Now just a minute!” said Emily. “I'm not one to encourage bloodshed, Lord knows, but while I can see certain justifications for an affair of honor, cutting cards for my hand just doesn't qualify as such.”

“Besides,” said the steward, “we have charged all thousand spectators an extra shilling per head. We're likely to have a riot if you call the thing off.”

“Well, my friend,” said the Major, “it would seem that we have no choice.” He gestured to a track official, who walked up with a mahogany box containing two pistols.

I was offered first choice, and since they looked alike to me I just grabbed the one that was closer. Evidently I did it with such skill and swiftness that the crowd thought I knew what I was doing, because a little murmur of approval spread through them. The Major took the other one and we stood back-to-back at the finish line.

“At my signal,” said the steward, “you will each take ten paces, turn, and fire. Any fouls and/or disqualifications will be at the discretion of the track's governing board. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” said the Major.

“I suppose so,” I said.

“Good,” said the steward. “Proceed.”

The Major must have taken quicker steps than me, because I heard two shots before I got to my tenth step.

“False start!” cried the steward.

“Now what?” I asked, turning around.

“You do it again until you get it right,” said the steward.

So we did it again, and this time we turned and faced each other at the same instant. I heard a lot of shots coming from the Major's direction, and I just closed my eyes, pointed the gun toward him, and kept firing until I was out of bullets.

“Halt!” cried the steward.

“What now?” demanded the Major.

“You wounded nine spectators and killed a mule,” said the steward disgustedly. “Are you sure you want to continue with this?”

“Absolutely,” said the Major.

“All right, then,” said the steward as we re-loaded our weapons. “This time get back to back and only go five paces. Maybe
that
will help.”

Well, to make a long story short, we each fired off six more bullets, and nothing much happened except that we took the head off a Guinea hen that had wandered onto the track by mistake. The crowd started getting ugly then, and one of them threw a rock that grazed the Major's skull.

“Foul!” he cried, and fell to the dirt track.

“How is he?” I asked, moseying over.

“'Tis a far far better thing I do than I have ever done,” said the Major.

“Oh, get up!” snapped the steward. “I've seen fly bites draw more blood than that!”

The Major got uneasily to his feet and waved a victory sign to the crowd, which booed in return.

“May I make a suggestion?” said the steward.

“Shoot,” I said, and the Major hit the ground again. “What's the matter now?” I asked, helping him to his feet.

“You might select your words a little more carefully,” he said sternly.

“My suggestion?” said the steward impatiently.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Since you two are not the most skillful marksmen I have ever seen, I suggest that we might bring this unhappy affair of honor to a conclusion a mite quicker if you switched to swords.”

“A capital suggestion!” cried the Major enthusiastically.

A moment later a couple of military sabers were brought out. They had to show me how to hold mine, but the Major grabbed his like it was an old friend and started swishing it through the air as if he was slicing mosquitoes in half.

“Are you ready?” asked the steward.

“Not by a long shot,” I said, still trying out how to hold it without sticking my thumb over the bell.

“Too damned bad,” said the steward. “Proceed.”

The Major gave me a great big grin and a great big salute with his sword, and I figured that me and the Lord would be hobnobbing in person in just a couple more seconds. Then he lunged forward at me, and I heard something that sounded like a gunshot, only louder.

“Owww!” he screamed, and I noticed that he was standing still as a statue, which was kind of difficult since he was all stretched out, one leg dragging behind him and one arm extended toward me.

“What happened?” I asked him, putting my sword down and staring at him with my hands on my hips.

“I must have thrown my back out!” he grated. “I can't move!”

Well, me and the steward called time out and tried to straighten the Major up, but he sure enough wasn't kidding about being stuck in that position. After about ten minutes we gave up and I walked over to Emily Perrison.

“Miss Emily,” I said, “I just don't think I'd feel right about killing the Major under these conditions, him being helpless and all—and especially not with so many witnesses.”

“I understand,” she said, patting my hand. “It's your Christian goodness rising to the fore.”

“I'm glad nobody got killed,” I said.

“So am I,” she smiled.

“I'm not,” said Horace sullenly.

“Well, then,” I said, “if you'll just name the happy date, Miss Emily, I'll announce our nuptials to all and sundry.”

“I've been giving the matter some serious thought during these past few minutes, Lucifer,” she said slowly, “and I have decided to give myself in marriage to Major Dobbins.”

“But why?” I said. “I mean, I could go over and slice him up a little if that's all that stands in the way of our getting hitched.”

“It's more than that, Lucifer,” she said. “You're so good and pure and true, such a Christian gentleman, that you'd never be happy tied down to a family in a dull little city like Durban when you could be off converting cannibals and lepers and the like. Whereas Major Dobbins, on the other hand, has a certain weakness of the spirit that makes his salvation a real challenge to me.”

“But Miss Emily,
I
can be just as weak as
he
can!” I protested.

“No, I won't hear of it,” she said firmly. “You're too good for me, Lucifer. It's the Major who wanted my money, while you only wanted to serve our God.”

“Suppose I wanted your money, too,” I said. “Would that make a difference to you?”

“Don't be silly!” she laughed. “You're too fine and pure to think such sordid thoughts.”

“I am?” I asked unhappily.

“Absolutely. Now you and the Major will each get what you want, and I'll have made both of you happy.”

“But...”

“Onward Christian Soldier!” she cried with a wild evangelical gleam in her eye.

I took one last look at Horace and decided that staying single might not be the worst of all possible fates, so I took my leave of Durban while they were still trying to decide whether to take the Major to a doctor or coat him over with paint and use him as a lawn statue.

I camped north of town that night and had a little heart-to-heart with my Silent Partner, who pointed out that He had littered South Africa with diamonds and other baubles and that, as long as I was here anyway, this might not be a bad time to look for them.

It sounded good to me, and I headed inland in search of my fortune, determined to keep no diamonds under eighteen carats.

Chapter 9
THE LOST RACE

You know, diamonds are a lot harder to find than you might think.

I must have spent the better part of two weeks looking in caves and gorges and riverbeds and valleys and abandoned rock quarries without finding a single one. I even checked out a couple of exotic-looking orchards, just in case I was dead wrong about where diamonds came from, but I finally had to admit that there was more to the diamond-prospecting business than met the eye.

Since I was fresh out of funds (actually, there's wasn't nothing
fresh
about it—I'd been out of funds for quite a long time), I took a job dealing faro when I hit Germiston, a quaint little village a couple of miles east of Johannesburg. I gave it up after a couple of days, though, after I earned enough money to buy a second-hand Chautauqua tent.

I supplemented my meager preaching income by hosting a few friendly games of bingo until I realized that the bingo cards were costing me more than I was winning from the natives, since there wasn't much of a market for boers’ teeth and such other trinkets as they used for legal tender, and finally I made up my mind to light out for Nairobi the next day to see if I couldn't scare up a little more money in British East Africa than I was finding in the Down Under side of the continent.