as the beast, after surveying me intently for a moment,
The doctor came up to me. Poor doctor! He was paler than Grushnitski had been ten minutes before.
The words which followed I purposely pro- nounced with a pause between each -- loudly and distinctly, as the sentence of death is pro- nounced:
"Doctor, these gentlemen have forgotten, in their hurry, no doubt, to put a bullet in my pistol. I beg you to load it afresh -- and properly!"
"Impossible!" cried the captain, "impossible! I loaded both pistols. Perhaps the bullet has rolled out of yours. . . That is not my fault! And you have no right to load again. . . No right at all. It is altogether against the rules, I shall not allow it" . . .
"Very well!" I said to the captain. "If so, then you and I shall fight on the same terms" . . .
Grushnitski stood with his head sunk on his breast, embarrassed and gloomy.
"Let them be!" he said at length to the cap- tain, who was going to pull my pistol out of the doctor's hands. "You know yourself that they are right."
In vain the captain made various signs to him. Grushnitski would not even look.