tuation.

"Come, come!" said Count Victor, affecting a cheerfulness, "my waistcoat
would scarcely adorn a man of your inches, and as for my pantaloons"--he
looked at the ragged kilt--"as for my pantaloons, now on one's honour,
would you care for them? They are so essentially a matter of custom."

He would have bantered on in this strain up to the very nose of the
enemy, but the man in his path was utterly unresponsive to his humour.
In truth he did not understand a word of the nobleman's pleasantry. He
uttered something like a war-cry, threw his bonnet off a head as bald as
an egg, and smote out vigorously with his broadsword.

Count Victor fired the pistol _a bout portant_ with deliberation; the
flint, in the familiar irony of fate, missed fire, and there was nothing
more to do with the treacherous weapon but to throw it in the face of
the Highlander. It struck full; the trigger-guard gashed the jaw and the
metalled butt spoiled the sight of an eye.

"This accounts for the mace in the De Chenier quartering," thought the
Count whimsically. "It is obviously the weapon of the family." And he
drew the rapier forth.

A favourite, a familiar arm, as the carriage of his head made clear at
any time, he knew to use it with the instinct of the eyelash, but
it seemed absurdly inadequate against the broad long weapon of his
opponent, who had augmented his attack with a dirk drawn in the left
hand, and sought lustily to bring death to his opponent by point as well
as edge. A light dress rapier obviously must do its business quickly
if it was not to suffer from the flailing blow of the claymore, and yet
Count Victor did not wish to increase the evil impression of his first
visit to this country by a second homicide, even in self-defence. He
measured the paunched rascal with a rapid eye, and with a flick at the
left wrist disarmed him of his poignard. Furiously the Gael thrashed
with the sword, closing up too far on his opponent. Count Victor broke
ground, beat an appeal that confused his adversary, lunged, and skewered
him through the thick of the active arm.

The Highlander dropped his weapon and bawled lamentably as he tried to
staunch the copious blood; and safe from his further interference, Count
Victor took to his heels again.

Where the encounter with the obese and now discomfited Gael took place
was within a hundred yards of the castle, whose basement and approach
were concealed by a growth of stunted whin. Towards th