Ford opened the wooden case and produced two duelling pistols. Bampfylde, because he had been challenged, had been offered the choice of weapons, and he had chosen a pair of long-barrelled French-made percussion pistols. Frederickson weighed them in his hands, inspected their hammers, then pulled the ramrod from one of the guns and probed both barrels. He was checking that neither pistol had concealed rifling in the rear part of their barrels. Both were smooth-bore. They were, so far as a craftsman’s high skill could make them, identical weapons.

The doctor was leaning forward in the carriage to watch the careful preparations. His coachman, swathed in a cloak, stood by the horses’ heads. Harper waited by the pine trees.

Ford loaded both pistols, carefully watched by Frederickson. The Lieutenant used fine black powder that was dispensed from a small measuring cup. Ford was nervous, his hand quivered, and some of the powder was wisped away by the wind, but he carefully took an extra pinch to compensate for the loss. The powder was tamped down with the ramrod, then each lead ball was wrapped in an oiled leather patch. Bullets, however carefully cast, were never quite of a perfect calibre, but the leather patch made the fit as true as was possible, and thus gave the pistols added accuracy. Greater accuracy would have been achieved if the weapons’ barrels had been rifled, but that was thought to be unsporting. The balls were rammed down the barrels, then the ramrod was struck with a brass hammer to make sure that the missiles were sitting hard against the powder charge.

Once the barrels were charged Ford opened a small tin case which contained the percussion caps. Each cap was a wafer of paper-thin copper enclosing a tiny charge of black powder. When the pistol’s hammer struck the copper wafer the hidden powder exploded to lance a tiny jet of flame down the touch-hole to the compacted charge in the barrel. Such guns were finicky, expensive, and much more reliable than the old-fashioned flintlock that was so prone to dampness. Ford carefully pressed the caps into the tiny recesses beneath the two hammers, then gently lowered the hammers so the guns were safe. Then, with a curiously diffident air, he offered both butts to Frederickson.