“Sit down! At a time like this!” cried the lad. “Oh, will nothing stir you? Are you such a cowardly cur that you are going to hide yourself among the German petticoats about the Palace? I tell you, it is true: General Sir Robert Gowan throws up his hat for the King.”
“Cowardly cur yourself!” cried Frank, whose rage had been bubbling up to boiling-point for the last ten minutes and now burst forth.
“Miserable traitor! I thought better of you!” cried Andrew bitterly. “Pah! Friends! You are not worth the notice of a gentleman. Out of the way, you wretched cur!”
He struck Frank sharply across the face with his glove, as he stepped forward to pass, and quick as lightning the boy replied with a blow full in the cheek, which sent him staggering back, so that he would have fallen had it not been for the wall.
In an instant court rules and regulations were forgotten. The boys knew that they wore swords, and these flashed from their scabbards, ornaments no longer, and the next moment they crossed, the blades gritted together, thrust and parry followed, and each showed that the instructions he had received were not in vain.
What would have been the result cannot be told, save that it would have been bitter repentance for the one who had sent his blade home; but before any mischief had been done in the furious encounter, the doors at either end of the anteroom were opened, and the Prince and the officers from the audience chamber with the guards from the staircase landing rushed in, the former narrowly escaping a thrust from Andrew’s sword, as with his own weapon he beat down the boys’.
“How dare you!” he cried.
“Now!” cried Andrew defiantly to Frank, as he stood quivering with rage—“now is your time. Speak out; tell the whole truth.”
“Yes, the whole truth,” said the Prince sternly. “What does this brawl mean?”
Frank did not hesitate for a moment.