A TERRIBLE DUEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6930, 2 February 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

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-Democrat. It was between two young men of the Crescent City, and occurred over forty years ago. The young men were Henri Delagrave and Alphonse Riviere, and the cause of the duel was the success of the former in wooing Mme. Celestin. Eiviere sought out Delagrave, and found him in a gambling saloon. Riviere was very pale as he approached the group of men round the table. What with the yellow light shining through the curtains and his bloodless appearence, he seemed rather a ghastly corpse than a living body, but there was motion and a voice in him which soon dispelled 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 of a tomb, said, " Delagrave, we cannot live on this globe together; it is not large enough." Delagrave, quietly puffing his cigarette, in a cold and impressive tone replied, " Xes ; 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 ho opened his heart, "It must be a battle to the death." Such was the enmity between himself aud 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 aud said, "Very well, then; it shall bo to the death." Few people knew what sort of a party it was driving down the shell road bordering Rayon 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 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 doue 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 thore is no solution to the difference botween you but the death of one. The world is so formed that both cannot live in it at the same time." Tbe two nodded. "Therefore, " the doctor went on, " we have agreed to make the arbitrament as fair as possible, and let fate decide." He took out a black morocco case, and from it he produced a pill box containing four pellets. "One oi these, " Baid 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, aud 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 t.he doctor, "we well to3s for the fir6t pill." Savalle cried out "tails," as the filtering gold piece revolved in the air. It fell nA» 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 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 develop the slighest difference. Nature alone, through the physiological alembic of the human stomach, can tell of their properties. In one there rest 3 the pall of eternity, the struggle for breath, the tailing of sight, the panorama of years rushing in an iastant 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. The 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 "heads." " Heads" it was, and Delograve 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 their tongues and took a draught of claret. One sccoud passed, and there was no movement. Then "Good God!" exclaimed Riviere, Ins eyes starting from their sockets. He turned half around 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, neir the island. He fell prone to the earth, and, save a cervous contraction of the muscles of the face, there was no movement. Delagrave took him by the hand as he lay on the damp c;rass, aud said in a tender voice, "I regret it, but it was to be." The funeral was one of the largest ever seen in New Orleans, and for weeks the c&fiSs were agog with the story of the duel. The beautiful widow, horrified at the affair, would never see Delagrave afterward, and is now a happy grandmere at Bayou Lafourche, having maried a wealthy planter two years after the fatal event. Delagrave, 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 suffered 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.