the spirit of the old priest's
movements. Instantly the sword leaping against his own seemed endowed
with subtle cunning and malignant treachery. Before this it had been
difficult enough to meet the fine play and hold fairly even; now he was
startled and confused; but he rose to the emergency with admirable will
power and cleverness.

"Murderer of a poor orphan girl!" Father Beret added with a hot
concentrated accent; "death is too good for you."

Hamilton felt nearer his grave than ever before in all his wild
experience, for somehow doom, shadowy and formless, like the atmosphere
of an awful dream, enmisted those words; but he was no weakling to quit
at the height of desperate conflict. He was strong, expert, and game to
the middle of his heart.

"I'll add a traitor Jesuit to my list of dead," he panted forth, rising
yet again to the extremest tension of his power.

As he did this Father Beret settled himself as you have seen a mighty
horse do in the home stretch of a race. Both men knew that the moment
had arrived for the final act in their impromptu play. It was short, a
duel condensed and crowded into fifteen seconds of time, and it was
rapid beyond the power of words to describe. A bystander, had there
been one, could not have seen what was finally done or how it was done.
Father Beret's sword seemed to be revolving--it was a halo in front of
Hamilton for a mere point of time. The old priest seemed to crouch and
then make a quick motion as if about to leap backward. A wrench and a
snip, as of something violently jerked from a fastening, were followed
by a semicircular flight of Hamilton's rapier over Father Beret's head
to stick in the ground ten feet behind him. The duel was over, and the
whole terrible struggle had occupied less than three minutes.

With his wrist strained and his fingers almost broken, Hamilton
stumbled forward and would have impaled himself had not Father Beret
turned the point of his weapon aside as he lowered it.

"Surrender, or die!"

That was a strange order for a priest to make, but there could be no
mistaking its authority or the power behind it. Hamilton regained his
footing and looked dazed, wheezing and puffing like a porpoise, but he
clearly understood what was demanded of him.

"If you call out I'll run you through," Father Beret added, seeing him
move his lips as if to shout for help.

The level rapier now reinforced the words. Hamilton let the breath go
noiselessly from