we both saved
her--and she told us both to fight--and it would not be just that either
should fail and fall alone, while the other----"

"You mean," said Turnbull, in a voice surprisingly soft and gentle,
"that there is something fine about fighting in a place where even the
conqueror must die?"

"Oh, you have got it right, you have got it right!" cried out Evan, in
an extraordinary childish ecstasy. "Oh, I'm sure that you really believe
in God!"

Turnbull answered not a word, but only took up his fallen sword.

For the third time Evan MacIan looked at those three sides of English
cliff hung with their noisy load of life. He had been at a loss to
understand the almost ironical magnificence of all those teeming
creatures and tropical colours and smells that smoked happily to heaven.
But now he knew that he was in the closed court of death and that all
the gates were sealed.

He drank in the last green and the last red and the last gold, those
unique and indescribable things of God, as a man drains good wine at the
bottom of his glass. Then he turned and saluted his enemy once more, and
the two stood up and fought till the foam flowed over their knees.

Then MacIan stepped backward suddenly with a splash and held up his
hand. "Turnbull!" he cried; "I can't help it--fair fighting is more even
than promises. And this is not fair fighting."

"What the deuce do you mean?" asked the other, staring.

"I've only just thought of it," cried Evan, brokenly. "We're very well
matched--it may go on a good time--the tide is coming up fast--and I'm
a foot and a half taller. You'll be washed away like seaweed before it's
above my breeches. I'll not fight foul for all the girls and angels in
the universe."

"Will you oblige me," said Turnbull, with staring grey eyes and a voice
of distinct and violent politeness; "will you oblige me by jolly well
minding your own business? Just you stand up and fight, and we'll see
who will be washed away like seaweed. You wanted to finish this fight
and you shall finish it, or I'll denounce you as a coward to the whole
of that assembled company."

Evan looked very doubtful and offered a somewhat wavering weapon; but
he was quickly brought back to his senses by his opponent's sword-point,
which shot past him, shaving his shoulder by a hair. By this time the
waves were well up Turnbull's thigh, and what was worse, they were
beginning to roll and break heavily around them.

MacIan parried thi