ss was above, I continued to
attack so incessantly, and with such good reach, that my antagonist
still retreated upward. I followed him into the darkness; and then the
advantage was with me, as being slender.

Hitherto I had offered him my full front, but now I half turned my back
to the wall, so that his blade might scarce find me at all, and that I
might stand less danger of being forced backward off my feet. Well, so
we prodded the darkness with our steel feelers in search of each other's
bodies on those narrow stairs, striking sparks from the stone walls
which our weapons were bound to meet by reason of the continual
curvature.

At last the broad form of my adversary was suddenly thrown into faint
light by a narrow window in the wall. I staked all upon one swift
thrust. It caught him full in the belly, and ran how far up his body I
know not. With a cry he fell forward, and I was hard put to it to save
my sword and avoid going down with him. But I got myself and my sword
free, and went on up the stairs as fast as I could feel my way.

In a few moments I heard steps coming from above, and a rough voice
shouting down, "Ho, Gaspard, did you call? What the devil's up?" It was
the other guard, who must have been asleep to have been deaf to the
clash of our weapons, but whom his comrade's death-cry had roused. I
trusted that the walls of the tower had confined that death-cry from the
chateau; fortunately, the narrow window was toward the open fields.

I stopped where I was. When the man's steps sounded a few feet from me,
I said "Halt!" and, telling him his comrade was dead, proposed the terms
I had offered the latter. There was a moment's silence: then a clicking
sound, and finally a great flash of fiery light with a loud report, and
the smell of smoke. By good luck I had flattened myself against the wall
before speaking, and the charge whizzed past me. Thinking the man might
have another pistol in readiness, I stood still. But he turned and ran
up the stairs. I stumbled after him.

Presently the stairway curved into light such as we had left at the
bottom. The guard ran on in the light, and finally stepped forth to a
landing no wider than the stairs; where there hung a lantern over a
three-legged stool, beyond which was a door. At sight of this my heart
bounded.

At the very edge of the landing the man turned and faced me, pointing a
second pistol. As the wheel moved, I dropped forward. The thing missed
fire entir