He caught the blow easily enough on his blade, turning it aside. "Country play!" he muttered, and was content to let me recover myself ere he took me in hand. However, I had the good luck to drive him a pace or two backward, amidst the stuff that lay there about, bales and cordage and the like, which hampered him not a little, though for the rest I could not touch him; whereas he did me whenever he listed, but so far without great harm. Yet notwithstanding his disdainful clemency, or rather because of it, I lost all sense of the odds we matched at, and laid about me with increasing fury, so that, for all he was so expert and cool a swordsman, I kept him continually busy at the fence and sometimes put him to more art than he would have wished to use, in order to defend himself from my assaults.
Now the hall where we fought thus, was, as I have said, full of all sorts of impediments and ship's furniture, and was, besides, very low and lighted by nothing but the gleam of the stair-lamp at the far end, so that though we both lost advantage by these hindrances, yet his loss was the greater; for with due light and space he could have ended when he chose; but now was forced to expect until I should abate somewhat of my persistence ere he did so; which, seeing I bled more than at first, he no doubt looked for presently. And so indeed did I; but the expectation seconded my little art in such sort that I broke down his guard and, before I was aware, had caught him high up in the breast, by the shoulder, and I could have laughed for pleasure as I felt the steel sink in. Howbeit 'twas a flesh wound only, and thus no great matter, as I knew; but it served to put him quite from his coolness, and as well by his manner of fetching his breath, I could tell he was distressed, as by his level brow that he meant to be rid of me. But then—
"Oh, stay it here, gentlemen," cried the girl, who saw that we breathed a space, though we still kept our points up and ready to be at it anew. "If the watch pass now, you will be certainly apprehended as you go forth. Have pity of each other," she said, and came forward almost between us. "And you, sir" (to me), "if you do thus because he would have entered here, I thank you. But now let him go, I pray you, as he shall promise no further to offend."
You may imagine how this talk of my letting him go, who was a thousand times the better swordsman, angered my antagonist.
"Ay, Mistress Avenon," he said, in that wicked, scorning voice he had, "we shall stay it here surely to please you. But yet there be some slight formalities accustomed to be used which must first be done; and after I will go."
"What be those formalities you speak of?" she asked, with an apparent gladness that the worst was past.
"Just that I must kill him," said the dark man, very quietly between his teeth.
"Good mistress," I cried out, for I was persuaded he spake truth and dreaded lest she should see what in pity of her womanhood I would should be hid, "go aside now. Go to your chamber." But to the man I whispered, "Come without into the street."
"There spoke a coward," was his word, and drawing back upon his ground he swung up his sword arm to the height, and husbanding the weight of his whole body, stood poised to cut me down. I saw the blow coming, even in the dark, and despairing to avoid it, let drive right forward, at the same moment muffling up my eyes in the sleeve of my idle arm, for the terror of death was upon me then. Our swords sang.... But even as I struck I knew that a miracle had been wrought, for his sword never fell. Sick with amazement I opened my eyes, to see him go over amongst the bales, where he sank down with a great sobbing cry. His sword hung quivering from a rafter of the ceiling, which it had bitten into by the blade's breadth. His tallness of stature, and hardly I, had overthrown him and left me victor.
"God be praised!" I said very low, when I perceived and could believe how matters had gone; but "God have mercy!" whispered the maid.