A Terrible Duel.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1818, 1 March 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

A Terrible Duel.

SWORDS AND PISTOLS IGNORED AMD PRTJSSIC ACID PILLS AND CLARET ADOI'TLD INSTEAD. A duel, fatal to one of the principals, and yet novel in nature, is detailed by a writer in the New Orleans Times-Democrat. It was between two young men of the Crescent City, and occurred over forty years ago. The young men weie Henri Delgrave and Alphonse Riviere, and the cause of the duel was the success of the former in wooing Mme. Celestin. Eivieie sought out Delgrave, 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 theie was motion and a voice in him which soon dispelled such an illusion. As he neared Delgrave the latter turned to confront him, when Rhiere, with a voice that seemed to come from behind the door of a tomb, said : " Delgrave, we cannot live on this globe together it is not large enough." Delgrave, quietly puffing his cigarette, in a cold and impressive tone, replied : " Yes ; you annoy me. It would be 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 light 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 he opened his heart : "It must ba a battle to the death." Such was the enmity between himself and Riviere, only a life could wipe it out. The old doctor, who hadgiown up, it might be aaid, on the field, shrugged his shoulders and remonstrated, but at last acquiesced and said : " Very well, then ; it shall be to Ibe death." Few people knew what sort of a party it wa3 driving down the shell road bordering 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. Savalle, a wellknown character here forty yeais ago, accompanied Riviere, and old Dr. Rocquet was with Delgrave. The seconds had met previously and arranged everything. Delgrave, as he stepped from the carriage, looked 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. Saville 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 game time." The two nodded. "Therefore," the Doctor went on, "we have agreed to make the arbitrament as fair as it is possible, and let fate decide." He took out a black morocco case, and from it 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." Saville 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," aaid the doctor, "we will toss for the first pill." Saville cried out " 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. Delgrave, you have the first choice," said the doctor. Reposing in the little box, the four little globes seemed the counterpart of each other. The .closest scrutiny would not develop the slightest i, difference. - Nature alone, through the "physiological alembic of the human stomaob, can tell of their properties. In

! o'?" tlvue . -sfs tbo poll oC eternity, the I struggle fox breath, the failing o? sight, the panorama of .years rushing in an instant through the mind, the silence and peace of sleep *oi evrrmoio, the cerements, the burial case, the solemn coitege, and the close, noifaorao atmosphere of the giave. All these weio contained in one ol these littlo pellets. l)c);-'ra%e, having *\on the fir 1 ?!; choice, sleprod 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. "Ar>d now, 11. Riviere," said the doctor, liiviere extended his hand and took a pill. Like hia opponent, he swallowed it. The two men stood looking one another in tht- iac?. Theie was not a quiver to the eyelid, not a twitch to thu muscle. Each was thinking of himself as well as watching his adversary. One mjnute passed. Two minntps parsed. Three. Pour. Five. "Now gentlemen," This was the fatal choice. Both men were i> ady for tlu cast of the die. Seville tossed the gold piece aloft and the Doctor cried out " head-s." " Heada "it was, and Dolgrave took a pill fiom the box leaving only one. "Nou," said the doctor, " M. Riviere, the remaining one is for you. You will please swallow them together." The two men laised their hands at the .aniri time and deposited the pills on their l< indues and took a. diaught of claret. One second passed, and tneio was no movement. Then— "Good God!" exclaimed liiviore, hib c^es starting from their sockets. He turned half around to the left, raised hia nands above his head and shrieked a long, wild shriek that belated travellers even to this day bay thty hear on the shell road, near the Island. He 101 l prore to the earth, and save a nervous conti action of the muscles of the faco, thete was no movement. Delgrave took him by the hand as he lay on the damp grass, and said in a tender voice : " I le^iet it, but it was to be." The funeial was one of the largest ever seen in New Orleans, and for weeks the cafes were u,r;og with the stoiy of the duel. The beautiful widow horrified at the affair, would never see Delgiave afterwaid, and is now a happy yrandmere on Bayou Laiourche, having marLied a wealthy planter two yeais after the fatal event. Pelgiave, weighed down with the trials of an unhappy life, wrinkled and tottering, strolls along Canal street of a warm afternoon, assisted by a negro servant. Having a bare competency, he has never actually suffoied from want ; but ho shows evidences of S'reat m«utn,i anguish, The sight of a pill box makes him shudder, and the taste of claret will give him convulsions.