Aleph made certain strokes which were more remarkable for the freedom and grace with which they were delivered than for anything else, and which Draco found no difficulty in parrying. None of them were aimed at the face; but once the low stroke was so struck up by Draco in the parrying that the hand touched the swollen cheek. Draco’s eyes flashed.
In this preliminary bout it became evident to Aleph, from the force and direction of the parrying, that Draco was aiming to disable as well as to parry. His wards were strokes—his defense an attack.
“Now take your turn at parry,” said Draco with a subtle menace lurking in both eye and voice.
Aleph saw that the time had come when he would need all his watchfulness. He erected himself to a fuller stature. His feet and limbs set themselves into new firmness. His eye took on new openness and intensity without losing anything of its characteristic repose. He had hardly made this instinctive preparation before the blows began to come—at first with some show of tentativeness and moderation, but, as they were warded off, they returned with ever increasing heat and force, and gradually came to be aimed exclusively at the head. Now it was the mouth, now the eye, now the temple. He seemed bent on at least marring the manly beauty before him, and which contrasted so strangely with his own coarse and brutal features. Gradually the open palm became the knotted fist. Gradually the knotted fist came as fast and fiercely as the whole passionate force of the man could wield it.
Through the whole of this impetuous hail storm, Aleph kept strictly on the defensive. His whole work was parrying. Was not this in the bond? Of course his hands were full of occupation—his feet also when Draco began to shift positions and at length attacked him on whatever side and from whatever direction he could. Aleph hardly had time to wonder at the headlong ferocity of the storm that was discharging itself upon him.
“Stop!” cried Cornelius. “This is fighting, not examining. Stop! I say—this is intolerable.”
But Draco paid no attention. The glare of a tiger was in his eyes. His face was that of a fiend.
“Shall I quit the defensive?” inquired Aleph in a low voice to Cornelius and Metellus—as he gained a moment’s respite by a spring to one side.
“Do so!” they both exclaimed. “He means to kill you.”
Then was a sight worth seeing. Then the youth fairly awoke. Then his whole frame began to work with the supreme grace and force of some mighty machine. It was Apollo turned to Mars, or rather to Jupiter Tonans himself—so wonderfully sovereign and commanding became his aspect. And perhaps the most impressive thing about it was the mysterious repose and utter self-possession that sat on thrones in every feature.