that for your insult." And he aimed a blow with the flat of his sword,
which Ringan easily parried.

"I had thought thee a pirate," said the mild Quaker, "but thee tells me
thee is a gentleman."

"Hold your peace, Square-Toes," cried the leader, "and let's get to
business."

"But if ye be gentlefolk," pleaded Ringan, "ye will grant a fair field.
I am no fighter, but I will stand by my friend."

I, who had said nothing, now broke in. "It is a warm evening for
sword-play, but if it is your humour, so be it."

This seemed to them hugely comic. "La!" cried one. "Sawney with a
sword!" And he plucked forth his own blade, and bent it on the floor.

Ringan smiled gently, "Thee must grant me the first favour," he said,
"for I am the challenger, if that be the right word of the carnally
minded." And standing up, he picked up the blade from beside him, and
bowed to the leader from Gracedieu.

Nothing loath he engaged, and the others stood back expecting a high
fiasco. They saw it. Ringan's sword played like lightning round the
wretched youth, it twitched the blade from his grasp, and forced him
back with a very white face to the door. In less than a minute, it
seemed, he was there, and as he yielded so did the door, and he
disappeared into the night. He did not return, so I knew that Ringan
must have spoke a word to Faulkner.

"Now for the next bloody-minded pirate," cried Ringan, and the next
with a very wry face stood up. One of the others would have joined in,
but, crying, "For shame, a fair field," I beat down his sword.

The next took about the same time to reach the door, and disappeared
into the darkness, and the third about half as long. Of the remaining
three, one sulkily declined to draw, and the other two were over drunk
for anything. They sat on the floor and sang a loose song.

"It seems, friends," said the Quaker, "that ye be more ready with words
than with deeds. I pray thee"--this to the sober one--"take off these
garments of sin. We be peaceful traders, and cannot abide the thought
of pirates."

He took them off, sash, breeches, jerkin, turban, and all, and stood up
in his shirt. The other two I stripped myself, and so drunk were they
that they entered into the spirit of the thing, and themselves tore at
the buttons. Then with Ringan's sword behind them, the three marched
out of doors.

There we found their companions stripped and sullen, with Faulkner and
the men to guard them. We made up neat par