Curse the bullet! I would much rather that it had gone through my ribs." "I wish it had with all my soul!" roared Conrad, who now came rushing up.

"You are a damned fool, for you shot me instead of your opponent! Look, gentlemen! You see that tree by which I was standing?
Well, the bullet burrowed right into it.

What! fire at your own seconds?
Do you call that discretion?
If that tree had not been there, I should have been as dead as a ducat--as dead as a ducat, I say!" So this is what must have happened.

At the very moment when Alexander's bullet whizzed past Karpathy's ear he must have been so startled by the shock as to have involuntarily wheeled round and clapped one hand to his ear, and the same instant the loaded pistol in his other hand must have gone off sideways.

At any rate, Karpathy was found standing, after the shot was fired, _with his back to his opponent_.
He himself heard none of Conrad's reproaches, and the blood slowly began to trickle in little drops from his ear.