that I should now tell the truth about it. No man that has the hang of
his blade need fear the onset of a mob except in one case, and that is
this,--if the whole eight set upon me at once with every sword
extended, there was a chance that though I might, by great expertness,
disable half of them, the other half would run me through. But it
should never be forgotten that these men were fighting for money, and
I was fighting for my life, and that makes all the difference in the
world. Each man makes a show of attack, but he holds off, hoping that
one of the others will dare to thrust. This is fatal to success, but
not necessarily fatal to their intended victim. An active man with a
wall at his back can generally account for all that comes in front of
him if he is deeply in earnest and has not too much liquor in him. It
astonished London that I was able to defeat eight men, each one of
whom was armed as efficiently as myself; but, as my father used to
say, if you are not wholly taken up with the determination to have a
man's life, you may pink him in what spot you choose if you give a
little thought to the matter. The great object is the disarming of the
enemy. Now, if you give a man a jab in the knuckles, or if you run
your blade delicately up his arm from the wrist to the elbow, this is
what happens. The man involuntarily yells out, and as involuntarily
drops his sword on the flags. If you prick a man on the knuckle-bone,
he will leave go his sword before he has time to think, it being an
action entirely unconscious on his part, just like winking your eye or
drawing your breath; yet I have seen men run through the body who kept
sword in hand and made a beautiful lunge with it even as they
staggered across the threshold of death's door.

Now I had no desire for any of these men's lives, but I determined to
have their swords. I glittered my own shining blade before their eyes,
flourishing a semicircle with it, and making it dart here and there
like the tongue of an angry snake; and instantly every man in front of
me felt uncomfortable, not knowing where the snake was going to sting,
and then, as I said before, they were fighting for money and not for
honour. When I had dazzled their eyes for a moment with this
sword-play and bewildered their dull brains, I suddenly changed my
tactics and thrust forward quicker than you can count one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight,--and each man was holding a bleeding
fist to hi