"I think quite the contrary," Lopez replied. "If you had simply met him and wounded him, the thing might have passed off quietly. That would have shown that you were the better swordsman, and there would have been an end of it. But you have made him the laughing-stock of the town. It will be a joke against him all his life that he was driven about like a sheep by a man whom he boasted he was going to kill like a dog, and he will never get over it. No one could stand such disgrace with equanimity, but of course it is infinitely worse for a man as proud and as touchy about his family as he is."
"I will look out, but I don't think any precautions will be of much value. If a man wants to stab you, he is sure to find an opportunity sooner or later. However, I have my coat of mail, and I rely more upon that than on any vigilance on my part or on Roper's."
Two days later, when Arthur was returning home from Leon's, two men sprang out from a dark entry and struck at his back. Sharp exclamations broke from them as, instead of their knives burying themselves to the hilt, they struck on a hard substance. Arthur was nearly knocked down by the force of the blows, but, springing round, he seized both men by the throat before they could recover from their surprise. Roper, who was walking some ten paces in the rear, rushed up.
"All right, Roper, I have got them!" Arthur cried, and, squeezing their throats, he dashed their heads together with all his strength two or three times, with the result that as he released his hold they fell to the ground insensible.
"I think we will walk on, Roper. I must have pretty nearly broken their skulls, to say nothing of half-choking them. If we were to give them into custody it would be an endless affair, and I might be kept here for months. They will certainly not repeat the experiment, and whatever attempt Don Silvio may make next, it will not be in the same direction."
The next morning he told Leon of what had happened.
"I don't know whether you did right to let them go, Arthur. There is nothing to prevent this fellow from trying again in some other way."
"Nor would there have been if I had given them into custody. You may be sure that his bribes would be large enough to secure their silence as to who had employed them, and they would simply have declared that they only attacked me to obtain possession of any valuables I might have about me. Don Silvio is rich, and it is a hundred to one that, before the trial came on, the men would have escaped. A hundred pounds would bribe any jailer in Spain. If by accident this failed, he would bribe the judges, so that nothing would ever come out against the villain who set the men on me, and I might be kept dancing attendance on the courts for months."
"That is true enough, Arthur. Still, the matter would be kept hanging over his head, and until it was settled he would be hardly likely to make another attempt upon you. However, we need not discuss it now that you have let the fellows go scot-free."
"I have not let them go scot-free, I can assure you. In the first place I nearly strangled them, and in the second I am by no means sure that I did not fracture their skulls."