"Captain," then said J.T. Maston heartily, "I am the president's friend, his _alter ego_; if you must absolutely kill some one kill me; that will be exactly the same thing."
"Sir," said Nicholl, convulsively seizing his rifle, "this joking--"
"Friend Maston is not joking," answered Michel Ardan, "and I understand his wanting to be killed for the man he loves; but neither he nor Barbicane will fall under Captain Nicholl's bullets, for I have so tempting a proposition to make to the two rivals that they will hasten to accept it."
"But what is it, pray?" asked Nicholl, with visible incredulity.
"Patience," answered Ardan; "I can only communicate it in Barbicane's presence."
"Let us look for him, then," cried the captain.
The three men immediately set out; the captain, having discharged his rifle, threw it on his shoulder and walked on in silence.
During another half-hour the search was in vain. Maston was seized with a sinister presentiment. He observed Captain Nicholl closely, asking himself if, once the captain's vengeance satisfied, the unfortunate Barbicane had not been left lying in some bloody thicket. Michel Ardan seemed to have the same thought, and they were both looking questioningly at Captain Nicholl when Maston suddenly stopped.
The motionless bust of a man leaning against a gigantic catalpa appeared twenty feet off half hidden in the grass.
Barbicane did not move. Ardan stared at the captain, but he did not wince. Ardan rushed forward, crying--
No answer. Ardan was about to seize his arm; he stopped short, uttering a cry of surprise.
Barbicane, with a pencil in his hand, was tracing geometrical figures upon a memorandum-book, whilst his unloaded gun lay on the ground.
Absorbed in his work, the _savant_, forgetting in his turn his duel and his vengeance, had neither seen nor heard anything.
But when Michel Ardan placed his hand on that of the president, he got up and looked at him with astonishment.
"Ah!" cried he at last; "you here! I have found it, my friend, I have found it!"
"To counteract the effect of the shock at the departure of the projectile."
"Really?" said Michel, looking at the captain out of the corner of his eye.
"Yes, water! simply water, which will act as a spring. Ah, Maston!" cried Barbicane, "you too!"