Speaking now of the battle, I must warn you of my inability to tell the tale in nice and hair-line strokes. It was a notable fight, valorously sustained and fairly made; but indubitably it did not remain in one like myself—wholly ignorant of that fencing which pushes or stabs, and admirable with a saber no farther than striking a downright blow with the edge—to catch close work, and taste the merit of it. I have no more of fencing than of Sanscrit, and remember no work, of my own of that character beyond splitting an Indian's head like a pumpkin in a skirmish on the Tombigbee. I am strong of arm, and having the day before come across the long hair of seven white women, murdered at Fort Mimms, smoke-drying in the wigwams of a Creek village we sacked, I doubtless smote upon that savage with uncommon violence.
When the pair engaged, there were preliminary moments employed in feeling one another's strength. The swords kept up an incessant thin rasping, with an occasional singing note as they parted company for thrust or parry. Even my uneducated vision observed from the commencement how Noah held the better of it. His address was superior; and I should say that, with a stiffer wrist, he was withal the more falcon-like in assault, and readier of recovery.
Catron, by his brow of fury, meant death if he might only clothe his point for it. That was not to be. On the heels of a desperate stroke—it was fellow to a dozen that preceded it—which Noah foiled with blade describing a circle no bigger than a curtain-ring, Catron's flushed cheek faded to ghastly gray. For the moment I thought him touched; but no, it was but the sudden daunting conviction that he had met his master. This, breaking on him like the boom of a death-bell, and how his life stood now naked before one whom he had so provoked, ate the yolk from his courage like a weasel.
Catron foresaw his downfall before we who looked on might tell. And if I am to understand a gray, drawn face, then the news taught him the bitterness of death itself.
In the opening exchanges, Catron attacked. He was in and out with a hateful ferocity, thrusting and pressing, as one whose merest wish is murder. Noah gave backward not at all, but stood like a wall, risking all on eye and wrist. I could not catch the sleight of it, but again and again, as Catron thrust, I could see the lead-colored blade glimmer by Noah's side with not an open inch to give away. As Noah told me later, however, an inch in fencing is a wide margin.
Catron felt his strength slip from him; it was like the sands running from an hour-glass. But the rogue's heart summoned stoutness. Finding himself going, Catron must crowd the strife to an end before it ended him. He leaped back to get his distance; then without pause, and giving a sort of bellowing, roaring cry that may have been a scheme for terror, he sprang forward, sending on his point as straight as the stroke of a serpent.
What befell was like the lightning's flash; and no man's gaze, however trained to the trick of it, might follow. Noah did not parry, but stood aside from the other's point, which, passing, grazed his garments. Noah's point, in retort, entered Catron's sword arm just above the guard. I saw Noah hold his own hand high, and with point a bit lowered. Noah ripped up his foe's arm—split it like a mackerel!—from wrist to shoulder.
