And when after a few springs the distance increased still more, he straightened himself in the saddle, let the sword drop on its pendant, and putting his hands around his mouth, shouted in a trumpet-like voice: “Flee, traitor, flee before Kmita! I will get you, if not to-day, to-morrow.”
These words had barely sounded in the air, when on a sudden the prince, who heard them, looked around, and seeing that Kmita alone was pursuing, instead of fleeing farther described a circle, and with rapier in hand rushed upon him.
Pan Andrei gave forth a terrible cry of joy, and without lessening speed raised his sabre for a blow.
“Corpse! corpse!” shouted the prince; and wishing to strike the more surely, he restrained his horse.
Kmita, when he had come up, held in his own beast till his hoofs sank in the earth, and rapier met sabre.
They closed in such fashion that the two horses formed almost one body. A terrible sound of steel was heard, quick as thought; no eye could catch the lightning-like movement of rapier and sabre, nor distinguish the prince from Kmita. At times Boguslav’s hat appeared black, at times Kmita’s steel morion gleamed. The horses whirled around each other. The swords clinked more and more terribly.
Boguslav, after a few strokes, ceased to despise his opponent. All the terrible thrusts which he had learned from French masters were parried. Sweat was now flowing freely from his face with the rouge and white; he felt weariness in his right arm already. Wonder seized him, then impatience, then rage; therefore he determined to finish, and he thrust so terribly that the hat fell from his head.
Kmita warded with such force that the prince’s rapier flew to the side of the horse; and before Boguslav could defend himself again, Kmita cut him with the very end of the sabre in the forehead.
“Christ!” cried the prince in German, rolling to the earth.
He fell on his back.