By this time my antagonist had divested himself of coat and neckcloth, and stood, with open shirt-breast and the sleeve of his sword-arm rolled up to the shoulder, before me.
He was as much an overmatch for me in strength and vigor as in skill, and I felt an acute sense of shame in pitting myself against him. As he swung his sabre jauntily to and fro with the dexterous facility of a practised swordsman, I could read the confidence with which he entered upon the encounter.
“It is the first time you ever handled a sword, I think?” said the captain, as he assisted me off with my coat.
“The very first,” said I, endeavoring, I know not how successfully, to smile.
“Parbleu!” cried he, aloud. “This is no better than a murder! The boy knows nothing of fencing; he never had a sabre in his hands till now.”
“He should have thought of that before he uttered an insult,” said Carrier, placing himself en garde. “Come on, boy!”
The offensive look and manner in which he spoke so carried me away that I rushed in, and aimed a cut at his head. He parried it, and came down with a sharp stroke on my shoulder, exclaiming, “Ça!” as he did it. The same word followed every time that he touched me; nor did it require the easy impertinence of the glances he gave towards his comrades to show that he was merely amusing himself; as, at one moment, he covered my face with blood, and at another disarmed me by a severe wound on the wrist.
“Enough of this,—too much of it!” cried the captain, as the blood streamed down my cheeks from a cut on the forehead, and almost blinded me.
“When he says so, it will be time to stop,—not till then,” said Carrier, as he gave me a sharp cut on the neck.
My rage so overpowered me at this that I lost all control over myself; and, resolving to finish the struggle at once, I sprang at him, and, with both hands on my sword, made a cut at his head. The force was such that the blow broke down his guard and felled him to the earth, with a tremendous wound of the scalp; and there he lay, stunned and senseless, while, scarcely more conscious, I stood over him. Passion had up to that sustained me; but loss of blood and exhaustion now succeeded together, and I reeled back and fainted.