To have seen our Cap then! Face, neck and bosom were flushed with the
crimson tide of indignation!
"You are sure of what you tell me, Cousin John?"
"The man vouches for it!"
"He shall bite the dust!"
"What?"
"The slanderer shall bite the dust!"
Without more ado, down was thrown gun, game bag, powder flask and
shot-horn, and, bounding from point to point over all the intervening
space, Capitola rushed into Hurricane Hall, and without an instant's
delay ran straight into the parlor, where her epicurean friend, the
young Creole, lay slumbering upon the lounge.
With her face now livid with concentrated rage, and her eyes glittering
with that suppressed light peculiar to intense passion, she stood
before him and said: "Edwin! Craven Le Noir has defamed your cousin! Get up and challenge
him!"
"What did you say, Cap?" said Mr. Percy, slightly yawning.
"Must I repeat it? Craven Le Noir has defamed my character--challenge
him!"
"That would be against the law, coz; they would indict me sure!"
"You--you--you lie there and answer me in that way! Oh that I were a
man!"
"Compose yourself, sweet coz, and tell me what all this is about!
Yaw-ooo!--really I was asleep when you first spoke to me!"
"Asleep! Had you been dead and in your grave, the words that I spoke
should have roused you like the trump of the archangel!" exclaimed
Capitola, with the blood rushing back to her cheeks.
"Your entrance was sufficiently startling, coz, but tell me over
again--what was the occasion?"
"That caitiff, Craven Le Noir, has slandered me! Oh, the villain! He is
a base slanderer! Percy, get up this moment and challenge Le Noir! I
cannot breathe freely until it is done!" exclaimed Capitola,
impetuously.
"Cousin Cap, duelling is obsolete; scenes are passè; law settles
everything; and here there is scarcely ground for action for libel. But
be comforted, coz, for if this comes to Uncle Hurricane's ears, he'll
make mince-meat of him in no time. It is all in his line; he'll chaw
him right up!"
"Percy, do you mean to say that you will not call out that man?" asked
Capitola, drawing her breath hardly.
"Yes, coz."
"You won't fight him?"
"No, coz."
"You won't?"
"No."
"Edwin Percy, look me straight in the face!" said Cap, between her
closed teeth.
"Well, I am looking you straight in the face--straight in the two
blazing gray eyes, you little tempest in a teapot--what then?"