A TERRIBLE DUEL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1157, 27 March 1884, Page 3

A TERRIBLE DUEL.

A duel, fatal to one of the principals, and yet novel in nature, is detailed by a writer in the New Orleans Times-Demo-crat. It was between two young men of the Crescent City, and occurred over forty years ago. The young men were Henri Delegrave and Alphonse Riverie, and the cause of the duel was the success of the former in wooing Mine. Celestin. Riviere sought Delagrave, and found him in a gambling saloon. Riviere was very pale as he approached the group of men around the table. What with the yellow light shining through the curtains and his bloodless appearance, he seemed rather a ghastly corpse than a living body, but there was motion and a voice in him which soon betrayed such an illusion. As he neared Delagrave the latter turned to confront him, when Riviere, with a voice that seemed to come from behind the door ©f a tomb, said, ‘ Delagrave, we i cannot live on this globe together; it is

not large enough.” Delagrave, quietly puffing his cigarette, in a cold and impressive tone, replied, ‘ Yes ; you annoy me. H would bo better if you were dead.’ Riviere’s face flushed, and reaching forward he laid the back of his hand gently against Delagrave’s cheek. The game was at once interrupted. The slap which was so slight it did not even crimson the young man’s cheek, was enough to call for blood, and leaving the house he sought an intimate friend ; to him lie opened his heart, ‘ It must be a battle to the death.’ Such was _ the enmity between himself and Riviere, only a life could wipe it out. The old doctor, who had grown up, it might be said, on the field, shrugged his shoulders and remonstrated, but at last acquiesced, and said, ‘ Very well, then ; it shall be to the death.’ Few people knew what sort of a party it was driving down the Shell road bordering on Bayou St. John. Two carriages stopped just on the bridge leading to the island formed there by the bifurcation of the bayou, and four gentlemen alighted, feavalle, a well-known character here forty years ago, accompanied Riviere, and old Dr Rocquet was with Delagrave, The seconds had met previously and arranged everything. Delagrave, as he stepped from the carriage, looked furtively around for the cases of pistols, but seeing none, he was a little disconcerted. After walking about 100 yards from the carriages, the party stopped, and the doctor motioned them to approach closer. When they had done so, he called them by name and said, ‘ Gentlemen, we have discussed this matter nearly all of last night, and both Mr Savalle and myself feel satisfied that there is no solution to the difference between you but the death of one. The world is so formed that both cannot live in it at the same time.’ The two nodded. ‘Therefore,’ the doctor went on, 1 We have agreed to make the arbitrament as fair as possible, and ler fate decide.’ He took out a black morrocco case, and from it he produced a pill box containing four pellets, ‘ One of these,’ said he, ‘ contains a positively fatal dose of prussic acid, the other three are harmless,. We have agreed that each shall swallow two of the pills, and let destiny decide.’ Savalle inclined his head, and said, as the representative of Riviere, he agreed. The two men were pale, almost bloodless, but not a nerve trembled, or muscle contracted. ‘ Gentlemen,’ said the doctor, ‘we will toss for the first pill.’ Savalle cried cut ‘ tails,’ as the glittering gold piece revolved in the air. It fell in a bunch of grass, the blades of which being separated, showed the coin with the reversed head of the Goddess of Liberty uppermost. ‘Mr Delagrave, you have the the first choice,’ said the doctor. Reposing in the little box, the four little globes seemed the counter part of each other. The closest scrutiny would not detect the slightest difference. Nature alone, through the physiological alembic of the human stomach, can tell of their properties. In one there rests the pall of eternity, the struggle for breath, the failing of sight, the panorama of years rushing in an instant through the mind, the silence and peace of sleep for evermore, the cerements, the burial case, the solemn cortege, and the close, noisome atmosphere of the grave. All these were contained in one of these little pellets. Delagrave, having won the first choice, stepped forward and took a pill. With a calmness which was frigid, he placed it on his tongue, and with a cup of claret handed him by the doctor, washed it down. ‘ And now, M. Riviere,’ said the doctor. Riviere extended his hand and took a pill. Like his opponent he swallowed it, Th". two men stood looking one another in the face. There was not a quiver to the eyelid, not a twitch to the muscle. Each was thinking of himself as well as watching his adversary. One minute passed. Two minutes passed. Three. Four. Five. ‘Now, gentlemen.’ This was the fatal choice. Both men were ready for the cast of the die. Savalle tossed the gold piece aloft and the doctor cried out ‘ head.’ ‘ Heads ’ it was, and Delagrave took a pill from the box, leaving only one. ‘ Now,’ said the doctor, ‘ M. Riviere, the remaining one is for you. You will please swallow them together.’ The two men raised their hands at the same time and deposited the pills on thair tongues and took a draught of claret. One second passed, and there was no movement.. Then ‘ Good God !’ exclaimed Riviere his eyes starting from their sockets. He turned half round to the left, raised his hands above his head and shrieked a long wild shriek, that belated travellers even to this day say they hear on the shell road, near the island. He fell prons to the earth, and, save a nervous contraction of the muscles of the face, there was no movement. Delagrave took him by the hand as he lay on the damp grass, and said in a tender voice, ‘ I regret it, but it was to be.’ The funeral was one of the largest even seen in New Orleans, and for weeks the cafes were agog with the story of the duel. The beautiful widow, horrified at the affair, would never see Delagrave afterwards, and is now a happy grand mere at Bayou Lafourche, having married a worthy planterr two years after the fatal event. Delagrave, weighed down with the trials o an unhappy life, wrinkled and tottering,, strolls along Canal street of a warm afternoon, assisted by a negro servant. Having a bare competency, lie has never actually sobered from want ; but he shows evidences of great mental anguish. The sight of a pill box makes him shudder, and the taste of claret will give him convulsions.