observed to do a very peculiar thing. Jumping in front of Fra
Diavolo he drew up one knee, for all the world like a dancer who meant
then and there to cut a pigeon's wing. His foot described a circle under
the knee, then the performer turned partly round, and as a lightning
bolt his leg straightened out full against Fra Diavolo's stomach. The
ranchero dropped like a bag of sand, except that he groaned. Ney
captured the fallen pistol. A musket blazed, and a sailor cursed. And
forthwith the maelstrom began. It went swirling round, with weird
contortions and murderous eddies, but always its seething vortex was the
lone trooper.

Luckily, firearms were out of the question where both sides were so
mixed together. But Mexicans and sailors plied their knives instead, so
that there was much soppy red spreading over the yellowish white of
shirts, and over the blue of jackets. The pigeon-wing diversion, called
the savate, also played its bizarre role, for wherever a Frenchman found
space for the straightening out of a leg, in that instant a little
native shot from him as a cat from the toe of a boot. Fra Diavolo was
deposited flat on his back each time he tried to rise, till the sole of
a foot took on more terror than a cannon's mouth. As for Michel Ney, he
was beautiful and gallant, now that what he had to do came without
thinking. He achieved things splendidly with the butt of his enemy's
revolver, and exhorted his men the while to the old, brilliant daring of
Frenchmen.

The Storm Centre, though, was merely workmanlike. He put away the
six-shooters, and strove barehanded with joy and vigor, which was
delightful; yet so systematic, that it was anything rather than romance.
It might have been geometry, in that a foe is safer horizontal than
perpendicular, and the theorem he applied industriously, with simple
faith and earnest fists.

Yet, all told, it was a highly successful affair. Din Driscoll objected
to the brevity, but that could hardly be altered for his sake. The
little demons of Mexicans crawled from the outskirts of the mess, here
one, there two or three, and now many, limping and nursing heads, and
rubbing themselves dubiously, with hideous grimaces.

Suddenly the cafe door opened, and Jacqueline emerged, tripping lightly.
Din Driscoll was filling his cob pipe, but he paused with a finger over
the bowl. "If there isn't a woman in it!" he muttered. He felt imposed
upon. The game was a man's game, and now its flavor