A wave, bigger than any that had come before, broke upon the beach and rushed toward us in a mass of foam and water. In an instant we were lunging at one another knee deep in the sea. As the water flowed down the incline again it swept the sand from beneath our feet, and we had hard work to stand upright. But even that did not stop him from making a fierce thrust at my throat so that I had to be on the alert to force his point away.
The next instant came a woman’s scream. We both turned, forgetting for the time that our very lives depended on the watch we kept of the other.
Lucille was on the beach, running toward us!
My heart gave a throb, and I half turned myself about. The next moment I realized my folly, and was facing my enemy again. But that one moment was almost too long.
I had without thinking lowered the point of my weapon and given Sir George the very opening he wanted.
Like a snake his steel slipped half its length over mine, and the point was toward my heart. For the life of me I could not help the gasp that my breath gave. In my desperation I tried a parry that de Sceaul had once taught me. I dared not hope it would be effective, for I was too late with it.
His sword drew sparks from mine as it rasped along the length; the point was before my eyes.
With a last fearful lunge toward him I managed to force his weapon up, with my own pointing heavenward, and only just in time, for the point tore a furrow through the skin of my forehead.
And then there was a sudden snap, and a sound of ringing steel. I saw in the hand of Sir George only the hilt of his sword. In his eyes was a look of wonder, and his head was thrown back, in the effort to see what had become of his blade.
Next, ere either of us had time to move, the broken sword, whole from the point to where it joined the hilt, and which had been tossed high in the air by the force of my upward parry, and the spring of the broken steel, came down like an Indian arrow, point first.