backward, he withdrew from the circle.

"Very well," he said lightly. "Since we are all so--irregular. I will
take the substitute."

Rudolph gave a choking cry, and would have come forward; but Sturgeon
clung to the wounded arm, and bound on his bandage.

"Hold still, there!" he scolded, as though addressing a horse; then
growled in Heywood's ear, "Why did _you_ go lose your temper?"

"Didn't. We can't let him walk over us, though." The young man held the
sword across his throat, and whispered, "Only angry up to here!"

And indeed, through the anxious preliminary silence, he stood waiting as
cool and ready as a young centurion.

His adversary, turning back the sleeves of the unfortunate white linen,
picked up the other sword, and practiced his fingering on the silver
hilt, while the blade answered as delicately as the bow to a violinist.
At last he came forward, with thin lips and hard, thoughtful eyes, like
a man bent upon dispatch. Both men saluted formally, and sprang
on guard.

From the first twitter of the blades, even Rudolph knew the outcome.
Heywood, his face white and anxious in the failing light, fought at full
stretch, at the last wrench of skill. Chantel, for the moment, was
fencing; and though his attacks came ceaseless and quick as flame, he
was plainly prolonging them, discarding them, repeating, varying,
whether for black-hearted merriment, or the vanity of perfect form, or
love of his art. Graceful, safe, easy, as though performing the grand
salute, he teased and frolicked, his bright blade puzzling the sight,
scattering like quicksilver in the endless whirl and clash.

Teppich was gaping foolishly, Sturgeon shaking his head, the Cockney,
with narrow body drawn together, watching, shivering, squatting on toes
and finger-tips, like a runner about to spring from a mark. Rudolph,
dizzy with pain and suspense, nursed his forearm mechanically. The
hurried, silver ring of the hilts dismayed him, the dust from the garden
path choked him like an acrid smoke.

Suddenly Chantel, dropping low like a deflected arrow, swooped in with
fingers touching the ground. On "three feet," he had delivered the blow
so long withheld.

The watchers shouted. Nesbit sprang up, released. But Heywood, by some
desperate sleight, had parried the certainty, and even tried a riposte.
Still afoot and fighting, he complained testily above the sword-play:--

"Don't shout like that! Fair field, you chaps!"

Above the sword-pl