Canaples and I--there were at least some
twenty persons present, who came, despite the rain, to watch what they
thought was like to prove a pretty fight. Men of position were they for
the most part, gentlemen of the Court with here and there a soldier,
and from the manner in which they eyed me methought they favoured me but
little.

Our preparations were brief. The absence of seconds disposed of all
formalities, the rain made us impatient to be done, and in virtue of it
Canaples pompously announced that he would not risk a cold by stripping.
With interest did I grimly answer that he need fear no cold when I had
done with him. Then casting aside my cloak, I drew, and, professing
myself also disposed to retain my doublet, we forthwith engaged.

He was no mean swordsman, this Canaples. Indeed, his reputation was
already widespread, and in the first shock of our meeting blades I felt
that rumour had been just for once. But I was strangely dispossessed
of any doubts touching the outcome; this being due perchance to a vain
confidence in my own skill, perchance to the spirit of contemptuous
raillery wherewith I had from the outset treated the affair, and which
had so taken root in my heart that even when we engaged I still, almost
unwittingly, persisted in it.

In my face and attitude there was the reflection of this bantering,
flippant mood; it was to be read in the mocking disdain of my glance, in
the scornful curl of my lip, and even in the turn of my wrist as I put
aside my opponent's passes. All this, Canaples must have noted, and it
was not without effect upon his nerves. Moreover, there is in steel a
subtle magnetism which is the index of one's antagonist; and from the
moment that our blades slithered one against the other I make no doubt
but that Canaples grew aware of the confident, almost exultant mood in
which I met him, and which told him that I was his master. Add to this
the fact that whilst Canaples's nerves were unstrung by passion mine
were held in check by a mind as calm and cool as though our swords were
baited, and consider with what advantages I took my ground.

He led the attack fiercely and furiously, as if I were a boy whose guard
was to be borne down by sheer weight of blows. I contented myself with
tapping his blade aside, and when at length, after essaying every
trick in his catalogue, he fell back baffled, I laughed a low laugh of
derision that drove him pale with fury.

Again he came at me, al