“The seconds, before giving the signal to begin, have just asked your opponent if he is ready. Is it likely that he will allow himself to be rushed, or to be victimised by such a transparent piece of bluff?
“Is it not much more likely that he will have been told to look out for a surprise attack? One of two things,—either the man who confronts you is a skilful fencer, in which case he will not want you to give him time to collect himself, but will be quite capable of taking his own time; or his ignorance of fencing is on a par with yours, and then it is a toss up. It follows that if this desperate plan of attack is chosen, because it is thought likely to succeed, it is absurd. If however it is chosen, because the man who chooses it is of a restive impatient disposition, one who cannot wait and for whom cool defensive tactics are an impossibility, the case is different.
“All that one can say to the pupil, whose temper is such that he cannot play a waiting game, is something of this sort:—Trust your instinct, be guided by your natural impulse. You quite understand that by acting as you propose you run a greater risk; for your attack is delivered at random, you are embarking on a wild and hazardous speculation. Your only chance of success, as you yourself admit, is that you may, by suddenly and violently letting yourself go for all you are worth, take your opponent by surprise and put him off his parry. I can only give you one word of advice. Before letting yourself go, try at any rate to beat the other man’s sword out of line in any way you can. Knock it up or down, to one side or the other; as soon as you have made your beat, let yourself go straight, without the least hesitation. By this means you will avoid an interchange of hits or a stop thrust. But I warn you this is not so easy as it sounds.
“Possibly, where so much depends on luck and accident, you may bring off your hit. But if you are the wounded man, you will be wounded with a vengeance, for you will probably run on the sword up to the hilt,—a trifling consideration, which is perhaps worth taking into account.
“This plan in fact can never be recommended; it involves not only too many risks, but risks that are too serious and too certain. I will show you presently in greater detail why this is so, when we look at the question from the other side, from the point of view of a fencer more or less skilful, who is opposed to a novice ignorant of swordsmanship but a determined natural fighter, who is thoroughly roused by a keen sense of danger.
XIII.
“The case we shall consider next will be the reverse of this. By reversing the position we shall hear what is to be said on both sides, and we shall then have considered from every point of view, the probabilities of victory or defeat, which are likely to occur in a duel. We will leave that for to-morrow.”
And so we broke up.
