At that moment there came across the water the sound of pistol-shots from the shore!
Nita and Lizette both shrieked simultaneously, and sprung to their feet. Mr. Irwin also arose in alarm.
Nita caught his arm in a convulsive grasp.
"Oh, what is it? I am so frightened!" she shuddered, and just then the sound came again--two pistol-shots across the water.
Mr. Irwin was a nervous, timid man, and the two women clinging to him alarmed him almost as much as did the mysterious shots from the shore. He saw the captain of the yacht hovering near, and beckoned him frantically to his assistance. The jolly sailor approached and exclaimed:
"Ladies, ladies, you need not feel the least alarm. It's only somebody shooting seagulls."
This plausible excuse had an instant effect on the mistress and maid. They released the trembling Irwin, and Nita blushingly apologized for her extreme nervousness. In a few minutes more the captain observed:
"I hear the dip of the oars. Mr. Mountcastle is returning."
And so it proved. But, alas, for Nita, Dorian was not returning as he went. He lay prostrate in the bottom of the boat, an attentive surgeon bending over him, while Van Hise plied the oars with ease and skill.
The yacht captain, who had been straining his eyes across the rapidly darkening water, turned and whispered to Lizette:
"You had better take your mistress into the cabin now, for there has been a duel over there between Mr. Kayne and Mr. Mountcastle, and----"
But he never finished the sentence, for Nita's quick ears had overheard, and she fell upon the deck with a shriek of despair.
But Dorian was not dead, although severely wounded. It was Donald Kayne who lay upon the shore stiff and stark, slain by his friend for a woman's sake.
The accursed serpent ring had already borne ghastly fruit, just as the chuckling old miser had foreseen when he forced Nita to wear it as the price of life and liberty.
"A most deplorable affair," Captain Van Hise said later, when telling the horrified Irwin about it. "You see, Kayne had said something reflecting on the lady Dorian is to marry, and so he challenged him. I was his second, and Kayne came down with his own second and the two surgeons on his own yacht, so both principals were ready for instant flight if the authorities got wind of the duel. Kayne's yacht is at the regular landing, half a mile from here, and my friend came to this point to take up the lady, and also to be handy to the dueling-ground over yonder. Well, it was a gallant affair. They fought at ten paces with navy revolvers. Both escaped the first fire, but at the second, Donald Kayne fell dead and Dorian severely wounded. And, sure enough, the authorities were down on us. We just barely got our man into the boat and pulled out before they galloped on horseback to the meeting-place, and hallooed after our party."