he tall elegant figure was descending the
moonlight rocks with a light, elastic tread, dressed from head to foot
in a black atlas mantle. Szilard saw him drawing nearer and nearer, step
by step, to the mill behind a pillar of whose verandah he himself was
concealed expectant.

At the very moment when he perceived this figure, his former terror gave
way before a strange, resolute fury which now filled his heart, a
feeling familiar only to those whose blood is set boiling whenever they
are suddenly confronted by a pressing danger. He feared the man no
longer, he burned to encounter him.

Blind Juon stood beside him and pressed his hand. They both of them
began to listen intently, nature itself was as still as if the wind
also would listen. Nothing was audible but the dull measured tramp of
the approaching footsteps.

The black shape now footed the bridge; with a confident gait he
approached the middle of it, another step and the bridge gave way
beneath him and with an involuntary cry the man in black plunged into
the water.

"Now, sir, rush in!" whispered Juon to Szilard. But the latter could not
help thinking at that moment that it was an act of cowardice to attack a
man when he could not defend himself, even though that man was a robber,
so he allowed him to scramble out onto the other side.

The black mantle had fallen from the shoulders of Fatia Negra into the
water and there he now stood before Szilard with his wet clothes
clinging closely to his body like a statue of Antinous, a shape of
athletic beauty.

In his girdle were a couple of pistols, in all probability rendered
useless by the water and a long Arab yataghan almost as long as an
ordinary sword but without the usual cruciform hilt.

Szilard barred the way.

For an instant Fatia Negra was taken aback by his antagonist's
unexpected wariness and courage, but the next moment his drawn yataghan
flashed in his hand and the second flash was the clash of the contending
weapons.

And now happened what happens hundreds and thousands of times in actual
life. At the very first onset Fatia Negra, the notorious, the
practised, the invincible swordsman was disarmed by a young civilian who
had never, perhaps, held a naked sword in his hand before and possessed
no advantage over his opponent save the courage of an honest man as
opposed to the effrontery of a malefactor--a marvel indeed!

Both of them had lunged at the same time, neither of them had parried,
Szi