I made such a terrific sweep with my sword that it whistled through the air, and was like to cut off his head. Instead, however, of allowing it to do so, he met it with a curious turn of the wrist, and the weapon was hurled from my grasp.
As I stood before him panting and dishevelled, and young in the veins and full in them too, I seemed to care no more than a flake of snow for what was about to occur. I could but feel that I had traduced my father’s reputation, and had cast a grievous slur upon his precept. The blood was darkening my eyes and singing in my ears, but quite strangely I was not minding the blade of my enemy. That which was uppermost in my mind was the landlord’s opinion that he was the Devil in Person.
Upon striking my sword to the ground he bade me remark his method of disarmament.
“It approaches perfection so nearly,” said he, “as aught can that is the offspring of the imperfection of man. It is the fruit of a virtuous maturity; it is the crown of artifice; consider all the rest as nought. For I do tell thee, Spaniard, this piece of espièglerie, as they say at Paris, divides one of God’s own good swordsmen from the vulgar herd of tuck-pushers or the commonalty. And, mark you, it was all done with the left hand.”
While awaiting with as much composure as I could summon that stroke which was to put me out of life, there happened a strange thing. There had come into the room, unobserved by us both, the tap-wench to the inn. And in a moment, seeing what was toward, this brave little creature, not much bigger than a stool, and as handsome and flashing a quean as ever I saw, ran between me and the sword of my adversary.
“Hold, you bloody foreign man!” she cried imperiously.
“Nay, hold yourself, you neat imp,” said the Englishman, catching her round the middle by his right arm, and lightly hoisting her a dozen paces as though she had been a sack of feathers. Yet he had made but a poor reckoning if he thought he could thus dispose of this fearless thing. For his wine cup, half full of sherry, which had been set in the chimney-place out of the way of hap, was to her hand. She picked it up, and hurled the pot and its contents full in the face of the giant.
“Take it, you wicked piece of villainy!” she cried.
Now, by a singular mischance the edge of the cup struck Sir Richard Pendragon on the forehead. It caused a wound so deep that his blood was mingled with the excellent wine. Together they flowed into his eyes and down his cheeks, and so profusely that they stained his doublet and dripped upon the floor. And the courageous girl, seeing my enemy’s discomfiture, for what with the liquor and what with his gore he was almost blind for the nonce, she darted across the room and picked up my sword. With a most valiant eagerness she pressed it into my hand.
“Now, young señor gentleman, quick, quick!” she cried. “Have at him and make an end of him!”