The blades rattled together and struck sparks in the lamp-light. Click! Clatter! Click!—"Ah!" the long-drawn breath, a breath surging up from the very entrails—Click! Clatter! Click!
The fierce cold fury of that fight was far beyond anything in war, or the ordinary duello. It was à outrance, there was only one end to it, and that came very swiftly.
Commendone was not fighting for safety. He cared not, and knew nothing, of what the other might have in reserve. He did not even wait to test his adversary's tricks of fence, as was only cautious and usual. Nothing could have withstood him, and in less than two minutes from the time the men had engaged, the end came. Commendone made a half-lunge, which was parried by the dagger in Sir John's left hand, and then, quick as lightning, his sword was through Shelton's throat, through and through.
The Captain fell like a log, hiccoughed, and lay still.
"Two," said John Hull.
Johnnie withdrew his sword, holding it downwards, watching it drip; then he turned to his servant. "Sir John was here on guard," he said; "this is the ante-room to where She is. But I see no door, save only the one by which we entered."
"Hist!" Hull replied, almost before his master had finished speaking.
He pointed to the opposite wall, and both men saw a long, narrow bar of orange light, a momentarily widening slit, opening in a panel.
The panel swung back entirely, forming a sort of hatch or window, and through it, yellow, livid, and terror-struck, looked the face of the King.
Without a word John Hull rushed towards that part of the wall. When he was within a yard of it he gathered himself up and leapt against it, like a battering-ram. There was a crash, as the concealed door was torn away from its hinges. Hull lay measuring his length upon the floor, and Johnnie leaped over the prostrate form into the room beyond.