ld Saracinesca.

Del Ferice's face fell, and his smile vanished instantly.

"In that case we are ready," returned Casalverde, unable, however, to
conceal his annoyance. He was a friend of Del Ferice's and would gladly
have seen Giovanni run through the body by the foul thrust.

There was a moment's consultation on the other side.

"I will give myself the pleasure of killing that gentleman to-morrow
morning," remarked Spicca, as he mournfully watched the surgeon's
operations.

"Unless I kill him myself to-day," returned the Prince savagely, in his
white beard. "Are you ready, Giovanni?" It never occurred to him to ask
his son if he was too badly hurt to proceed.

Giovanni never spoke, but the hot blood had mounted to his temples, and
he was dangerously angry. He took the foil they gave him, and felt the
point quietly. It was sharp as a needle. He nodded to his father's
question, and they resumed their places, the old Prince this time
standing on the left, as his son had changed hands. Del Ferice came
forward rather timidly. His courage had sustained him so far, but the
consciousness of having done a foul deed, and the sight of the angry man
before him, were beginning to make him nervous. He felt uncomfortable,
too, at the idea of fencing against a left-handed antagonist.

Giovanni made one or two lunges, and then, with a strange movement unlike
anything any one present was acquainted with, seemed to wind his blade
round Del Ferice's, and, with a violent jerk of the wrist, sent the
weapon flying across the open space. It struck a window of the house, and
crashed through the panes.

"More broken glass!" said Giovanni scornfully, as he lowered his point
and stepped back two paces. "Take another sword, sir," he said; "I will
not kill you defenceless."

"Good heavens, Giovanni!" exclaimed his father in the greatest
excitement; "where on earth did you learn that trick?"

"On my travels, father," returned Giovanni, with a smile; "where you tell
me I learned so much that was bad. He looks frightened," he added in a
low voice, as he glanced at Del Ferice's livid face.

"He has cause," returned the Prince, "if he ever had in his life!"

Casalverde and his witness advanced from the other side with a fresh pair
of foils; for the one that had gone through the window could not be
recovered at once, and was probably badly bent by the twist it had
received. The gentlemen offered Giovanni his choice.

"If there is no objec