.

I rode out to meet him. The keenness of the coming, encounter for the
time almost caused me to forget my anger. I seem never to have thought
but that fate had brought me there for that one purpose. He saw me
advance, and whirled in my direction, eager as myself; and presently I
saw also that he recognized me, as I did him.

This is to be said of Gordon Orme, that he feared no man or thing on
earth. He smiled at me now, showing his long, narrow teeth, as he came,
lightly twirling his long blade. Two pistols lay in my holsters, and
both were freshly loaded, but without thought I had drawn my sword for a
weapon, I suppose because he was using his. He was a master of the
sword, I but a beginner with it.

We rode straight in, and I heard the whistle of his blade as he circled
it about his head like a band of light. As we joined he made a cut to
the left, easily, gently, as he leaned forward; but it came with such
swiftness that had it landed I doubt not my neck would have been shorn
like a robin's. But at least I could ride as well as he or any other
man. I dropped and swerved, pulling out of line a few inches as we
passed. My own blow, back-handed, was fruitless as his.

We wheeled and came on again, and yet again, and each time he put me on
defense, and each time I learned more of what was before me to do. My
old servant, Satan, was now his servant, and the great black horse was
savage against me as was his rider. Wishing nothing so much as to kill
his own rival, he came each time with his ears back and his mouth open,
wicked in the old blood lust that I knew. It was the fury of his horse
that saved me, I suppose, for as that mad beast bored in, striving to
overthrow my own horse, the latter would flinch away in spite of all I
could do, so that I needed to give him small attention when we met in
these short, desperate charges. I escaped with nothing more than a rip
across the shoulder, a touch on the cheek, on the arm, where his point
reached me lightly, as my horse swerved away from the encounters. I
could not reach Orme at all.

At last, I know not how, we clashed front on, and his horse bore mine
back, with a scream fastening his teeth in the crest of my mount, as a
dog seizes his prey. I saw Orme's sword turn lightly, easily again
around his head, saw his wrist turn gently, smoothly down and extend in
a cut which was aimed to catch me full across the head. There was no
parry I could think, but the full counter