nlight, ringing to the
parries of cut and thrust. The barbaric harness of the duelists lent
splendid color to the savage, martial scene. The Orange Odwar, forced
upon the defensive, was fighting madly for his life. The Black, with
cool and terrible efficiency, was forcing him steadily, step by step,
into a corner of the square--a position from which there could be no
escape. To abandon the square was to lose it to his opponent and win
for himself ignoble and immediate death before the jeering populace.
Spurred on by the seeming hopelessness of his plight, the Orange Odwar
burst into a sudden fury of offense that forced the Black back a half
dozen steps, and then the sword of U-Dor's piece leaped in and drew
first blood, from the shoulder of his merciless opponent. An
ill-smothered cry of encouragement went up from U-Dor's men; the Orange
Odwar, encouraged by his single success, sought to bear down the Black
by the rapidity of his attack. There was a moment in which the swords
moved with a rapidity that no man's eye might follow, and then the
Black Odwar made a lightning parry of a vicious thrust, leaned quickly
forward into the opening he had effected, and drove his sword through
the heart of the Orange Odwar--to the hilt he drove it through the body
of the Orange Odwar.

A shout arose from the stands, for wherever may have been the favor of
the spectators, none there was who could say that it had not been a
pretty fight, or that the better man had not won. And from the Black
players came a sigh of relief as they relaxed from the tension of the
past moments.

I shall not weary you with the details of the game--only the high
features of it are necessary to your understanding of the outcome. The
fourth move after the victory of the Black Odwar found Gahan upon
U-Dor's fourth; an Orange Panthan was on the adjoining square
diagonally to his right and the only opposing piece that could engage
him other than U-Dor himself.

It had been apparent to both players and spectators for the past two
moves, that Gahan was moving straight across the field into the enemy's
country to seek personal combat with the Orange Chief--that he was
staking all upon his belief in the superiority of his own
swordsmanship, since if the two Chiefs engage, the outcome decides the
game. U-Dor could move out and engage Gahan, or he could move his
Princess' Panthan upon the square occupied by Gahan in he hope that the
former would defeat the Black Ch