Both men put themselves at once on the defensive: their blades crossed, but the attitudes were different and characteristic. Barbiche, drawing himself up to his full height, raised his left arm while standing face to face with his adversary, brought the point of his weapon close to his finger tips in salute, and then fell at once into the regulation position of the French fencing schools—the right foot well forward, both knees considerably bent, the left arm high in air, the elbow at a right angle. He kept his sword pointed at the eyes of his adversary; but he never rested for an instant. He evidently meant business. Haggard, on the contrary, assumed a totally different posture. His left arm was behind his back, the hand clenched, the right leg perfectly straight. He held the sabre lower, but the point was kept unwaveringly at the chest of his enemy; his teeth were set. On his face was that quasi-good-humoured smile, which is alike assumed by the British boxer and the British ballet-girl when exhibiting their arts.
The Frenchman's blade scintillated in the setting sun around Haggard's more stiffly held weapon. As it grated against it, first on one side then on the other, Barbiche made pass after pass, feint after feint at his impassive adversary. Suddenly he sprang forward with cat-like agility, his left hand touching the ground, and he made a rapid pass from below upwards at the Englishman; his point passed dangerously near his ribs. It was the well-known extension en seconde; a favourite trick among Parisian swordsmen of the Romantic school. The attempt failed, and was followed by a rapid succession of miscellaneous thrusts and passes in bewildering variety. The Frenchman never withdrew his blade; but his very anxiety to make a hit was defeating itself. Such tactics with the light rapier or small-sword are doubtless correct; but Barbiche forgot the weight of his weapon, and the muscles of his arm were already beginning to tire.
As that experienced swordsman, General Pepper, standing with stick extended, viewed the fight, it seemed to him that Haggard, by remaining purely on the defensive, ran a considerable risk, but that was Haggard's business. Perhaps after all his principal meant to take a flesh wound, and so end the matter. "But," thought the general to himself, "he'll find out his mistake, if that dancing devil gets in one of his vicious thrusts." Spunyarn looked on, and the perspiration streamed from his face. De Kerguel was no less excited, but he preserved a calm exterior.
More than two minutes had now elapsed since the combat had first commenced. These things take longer to tell than to do. Suddenly, in an instant, Barbiche made a furious lunge at his opponent; the Englishman parried it with ease, dropping his point lower than usual. As if blind to the consequences, the Frenchman rushed forward with a short sharp cry, his sword passed across Haggard's chest without touching him, but poor Barbiche had literally impaled himself on his adversary's extended weapon. His sabre dropped from his hand. He flung both his arms high in air, giving one bitter shriek. His face assumed the expression of one enduring intense torture, and then was calm again. The body, for he was dead, slipped off Haggard's sword in a heap at his feet. Haggard flung his weapon to the ground, and all four men crowded round the corpse.
"He is stone dead," said the surgeon.
There was a solemn silence.
"Save yourselves, gentlemen," at length cried De Kerguel. "I will see to my unfortunate friend. It was his own fault and mine," he said with a sigh.
The Englishmen saluted. Haggard resumed his garments, and they hurried from the field, unobserved and unmolested.
Next morning Rome rang with the affair; by noon all three Englishmen were safely over the frontier.
