“On your life, sir, stand back, and cease to interfere! I have the highest of commands for what I do.”
“What!” cried Sir Robert. “Why, I have been waiting for this, to pay you back the smart you gave me—insolent French puppy that you are! Give up your sword, sir. Do you know that it is a crime to draw in the precincts of the castle? This you have done, and it is my duty as one of his Majesty’s officers to arrest you on the spot. Give up your sword, sir, at once. You are my prisoner.”
“Take my sword,” cried Denis sharply, “and make me your prisoner, insolent boor, if you dare or can.”
“On your head be it then,” cried Sir Robert, loosening his cloak, twisting it quickly round his left arm, and drawing his sword, while the chief groom, startled by the danger in which the young esquire stood, whispered quickly to a couple of his underlings to hurry for the guard.
“Stop!” cried Sir Robert fiercely. “Let no man stir if he value his skin. I know what you would do, and that I’ll do myself when I have corrected this springald here.—Now, boy,” he roared, “your sword!”
“Now, Master Leoni,” whispered the boy between his teeth, as he rapidly placed himself on guard and made a feint at the burly captain’s chest. “Take it, insolent bully!” he said sharply; and the officer in his astonishment at the suddenness of the attack, fell back a pace; but recovering himself on the instant, he crossed swords with his young adversary. Then, to the excitement and delight of the grooms, who raised their lanterns to the full extent of their arms that the combatants might see, the triangular-bladed weapons began to give forth that peculiar harsh gritting sound of two steel edges rasping together.
The encounter was but short, for, relying upon the superior strength of his arm, and determined to punish his slight young adversary in revenge for the past, the captain pressed hard upon him, lunging rapidly with all the vigour he could command, his intention being to drive his antagonist backward against one or other of the walls and pin him there. But he had reckoned without his host, for though Denis was no long-practised swordsman, Leoni’s lessons had not been without their effect, and as thrust after thrust was lightly turned aside, the young esquire firmly stood his ground, merely stepping sideways and letting his adversary’s baffled blade glide by his slight form, while refraining from thrusting again and again when the burly captain had laid himself so open that he was quite at the lad’s mercy.
“Oh,” growled the captain at the end of a couple of minutes’ encounter, and he drew back to rest. “That is your play, is it? You refuse to be disarmed when I have mercifully shown myself disposed to let you off without a scratch.”
“Your tongue is sharper than your sword, sir,” said the boy scornfully; “and it is worse. It is poisoned, for every word you have spoken is a lie.”
“What!” cried the captain, enraged by the low murmur uttered by the grooms as if endorsing the young esquire’s words. “More insolent than ever! Give up your sword, or, by Heaven, I’ll send you back to the castle upon a litter.”