Capitola distinctly repeated her words and then, leaving the inn-
keeper, transfixed with consternation, she crossed the street and
entered a magistrate's office, where a little, old gentleman, with a
pair of green spectacles resting on his hooked nose, sat at a
writing-table, giving some directions to a constable, who was
standing hat in hand before him.
Capitola waited until this functionary had his orders and a written
paper, and had left the office, and the magistrate was alone, before
she walked up to the desk and stood before him.
"Well, well, young woman! Well, well, what do you want?" inquired
the old gentleman, impatiently looking up from folding his papers.
"I have come to give myself up for shooting Craven Le Noir, who
slandered me," answered Capitola, quietly.
The old man let fall his hands full of papers, raised his head and
stared at her over the tops of his green spectacles.
"What did you say, young woman?" he asked, in the tone of one who
doubted his own ears.
"I say that I have forestalled an arrest by coming here to give
myself up for the shooting of a dastard who slandered, insulted and
refused to give me satisfaction," answered Capitola, very
distinctly.
"Am I awake? Do I hear aright? Do you mean to say that you have
killed a man?" asked the dismayed magistrate.
"Oh, I can't say as to the killing! I shot him off his horse and
then sent Mr.
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