that their swords engaged at the hilt. The captain made a step
back.

"Ah! you give ground, my tall friend."

"To give ground is not to fly, my little chevalier," replied the
captain; "it is an axiom of the art which I advise you to consider;
besides, I am not sorry to study your play. Ah! you are a pupil of
Berthelot, apparently; he is a good master, but he has one great fault:
it is not teaching to parry. Stay, look at this," continued he, replying
by a thrust in "seconde" to a straight thrust; "if I had lunged, I
should have spitted you like a lark."

Ravanne was furious, for he had felt on his breast the point of his
adversary's sword, but so lightly that he might have taken it for the
button of a foil. His anger redoubled at the conviction that he owed his
life to the captain, and his attacks became more numerous and more
furious than ever.

"Stop, stop," said the captain; "now you are going crazy, and trying to
blind me; fie! fie! young man; at the chest, morbleu! Ah! at the face
again; you will force me to disarm you. Again! Go and pick up your
sword, young man; and come back hopping on one leg to calm yourself."

And with a sudden twist he whipped Ravanne's sword out of his hand and
sent it flying some twenty paces from him. This time Ravanne profited by
the advice. He went slowly to pick up his sword, and came back quietly
to the captain; but the young man was as pale as his satin vest, on
which was apparent a small drop of blood.

"You are right, captain," said he, "and I am still but a child; but this
meeting will, I hope, help to make a man of me. Some passes more, if you
please, that it may not be said you have had all the honors."

And he put himself on guard. The captain was right; the chevalier only
required to be calm to make him a formidable adversary: thus, at the
first thrust of this third engagement, he saw that he must attend solely
to his own defense; but his superiority in the art of fencing was too
decided for his young adversary to obtain any advantage over him. The
matter ended as it was easy to foresee. The captain disarmed Ravanne a
second time; but this time he went and picked up the sword himself, and
with a politeness of which at first one might have supposed him
incapable.

"Monsieur le Chevalier," said he, extending his hand to Ravanne, "you
are a brave young man; but believe in an old frequenter of schools and
taverns, who was at the Flemish wars before you were born, at the