Calais, and this final run through yielding
sand and clinging sedge was exhausting to one who seldom walked as
many furlongs as he had covered miles that morning. But even in
his panic of distress he fancied that his master was pressing the
Frenchman severely. It was no child's play, this battle with cold
steel. The slender, venomous-looking blades whirled and stabbed with a
fearsome vehemence, and the sharp rasp of each riposte and parry rang
out with a horrible suggestiveness in the moist air. And then, as he
lumbered heavily on, Dale thought he saw something that turned him
sick with terror. Almost halting, he swept a hasty hand across his
eyes--then he was sure.

Medenham, with arm extended in a feint in tierce, was bearing so
heavily on his opponent's rapier that his right foot slipped, and he
stumbled badly. At once Marigny struck with the deadly quickness and
certainty of a cobra. His weapon pierced Medenham's breast high up
on the right side. The stroke was so true and furious that the
Englishman, already unbalanced, was driven on to his back on the sand.
Marigny wrenched the blade free, and stooped with obvious intent to
plunge it again through his opponent's body. A warning shout from each
of the three spectators withheld him. He scowled vindictively, but
dared not make that second mortal thrust. These French gentlemen whom
he had summoned from Paris were bound by a rigid code of honor that
would infallibly have caused him to be branded as a murderer had he
completed matters to his satisfaction. Nevertheless, he bent and
peered closely into Medenham's face, gray now as the sand on which he
was lying.

"I think it will serve," he muttered to himself. "May the devil take
him, but I thought he would get the better of me!"

He turned away with an affectation of coolness which he was far from
feeling, while the doctor knelt to examine Medenham's injury. He saw
someone running towards him, but believed it must be one of the
witnesses, and his eyes fell to the stained blade in his hand.

"I rather forgot myself----" he began.

But the excuse was stopped short by a blow on the angle of the jaw
that stretched him by Medenham's side and apparently as lifeless.

Assuredly, Dale was not versed in the punctilio of the duel, but he
knew how and where to hit with a fist that was hard as one of his own
spanners. He put weight and passion into that punch, and scarcely
understood how effective it was until he found hims