A Singular Duel.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 179, 20 November 1886, Page 1

A Singular Duel.

Ofe day, M. Aubrey de Mont Didier, a gentleman of birth and influence, was journeying alone thi-ough the lonely Forest of Bondy, when he was attacked by robbers and killed, his body being buried by the assassins under a tree hard by the spot where he fell. For some days an English bloodhound whom he had with him kept watch over the spot, till compelled by hunger to quit the post. On thia the dog made his way to the house of a friend of the deceased gentleman at Paris, where the strangeness of his manner, coupled with the fact of his having come back without his master, roused much curiosity and wonder. As soon as he had been fed he kept running towards the door of the house and then back to his master's friend, pulling him by the sleeve, and used all sorts of dumb eloquence as if he wanted him to follow. At last the friend resolved to follow the leading of the dog, who made his way to the forest, and went straight to the foot of the tree where his murdered master lay, Here the boy began to howl piteously, scratching up the earth with his paws and showing his wish that the place should be dug out. Upon digging a few feet, the friend and his companions came upon the body of M. de Mont Didier, bearing the wounds which had been inflicted upon it by the knife of the murderer. For some time, however, no trace of the actual assassin could be found, till one day the dog met in the Btreets of Paris a certain chevalier named Macaire, whom he instantly tried to seize by the throat with great fury. This strange ccnduct on the part of a quiet and peaceful animal was lepoated on a second occasion, and, as it was known that Macaire had been a personal enemy of Mont Didier, grave suspicions began to be aroused. At length the affair reached the ears of the king, who, being anxious that the matter should be thoroughly sifted, sent for Macaire and also for the dog, who was gentle and playful until he scented Macaire in the crowd of courtiers standing around the king, when, as usual, he showed the fiercest hostility toward him. Struck by such an undesigned piece ot circumstantial evidence, the king at once ordered that the decipion should be referred to the trial by battle, or " appeal to the judgment of God," and a combat was ordered to be held between the chevalier and the dog in the He do Notre Dame, which was then almost an open space. The terme of the encounter were that the dog was to have an empty cask to retreat into after he had made his springs at his foe, while the man wa3 allowed a cudgol by way of arms Everything wa9 prepared for the duel, when the dog no sooner found himself face to face with his antagonist than he began running round and round Macaire, avoiding his blowp, until at last he seized him fairly by the throat, and after a severe struggle succeeded in laying him prostrate on the ground. The chevalier was rescued from the dog's grip by the bystanders, and, conscience-stricken, in the pressnco of the King, his Court, and the rest of the spectators, he acknowledged his guilt. A few days afterwards he expiated his crime upon the scaffold. The " Dog of Montargis" is a well-known tale in France, where its substantial truth is not doubted, and it has been the subject of at all events one popular drama.