CHAPTER XV.
THE DUEL.
My hopes of being soon released from that detestable city without a stain on my character; of leaving its barbarous ihabitants full of sadness at my departure, and lost in admiration of my exalted and multitudinous virtues, which it was not possible for them to emulate; of being able, by one of those sudden and unaccountable fortuitous events which sometimes, to our intense astonishment, change the fate of individuals and of nations, to help my valued and beloved friend Doctor Julius to effect his escape also, were now scattered by one tremendous convulsion to the four winds of heaven. I solemnly cursed my evil genius a thousand times for having led or driven me into that fearful Demon's palace again, and exposed me once more to the dangerous fascinations of the bewitching Bellagranda. Had I only been content to sit still in the Doctor's room, or amuse and delight myself with the history of his angelic Helen, this awful contretemps could not have happened. I was now doomed to fight a brutal, perhaps a bloody duel, will, no less a personage than the renowned Minister for Foreign Affairs, the fiery and vindictive Sir Dashmy Partigan. The possibility of my killing, or even wounding him, never once entered my head. Could I do so, and
