There was a sharp grinding of steel; and then, like a thing alive, the Duke's sword left his hand, sped through the air and settled, thirty feet away, point downward in the turf, where it stuck, quivering and swaying like a reed in the wind.
With a cry of sharp surprise, Lotzen sprang back and watched his sword as it circled and fell. I moved a step toward him. Then, he turned to me.
"It seems, Monsieur le Coquin," he said softly, "that I was in error; and that it is the point of your sword and not the hilt I am to take. So be it."
He draw himself up to attention, and raised his hand in salute.
"I am waiting," he said calmly.
Ferdinand of Lotzen was, doubtless, a bad lot. Once that night he had given me to assassination; and, just now, he himself had deliberately tried to kill me. He deserved no consideration; and, by every law of justification, could I, then and there, have driven my sword into his throat. Maybe I wanted to do it, too. We all are something of the savage at times. And I think he fully expected to die. He had told me frankly he purposed killing me, and he would not look for mercy, himself. The dice had fallen against him. He had lost. And, like a true gambler, he was ready to pay stakes. To give the fellow his due, he was brave; with the sort of bravery that meets death—when it must—with a smiling face and a steady eye.
And, so, for a space, we stood. He, erect and ready. I, with hand on hip and point advanced.
I heard the gasps of women—a sob or two—and then, the rustle of skirts, followed instantly by Courtney's soft command.
"Stay, madame—the matter is for His Highness only to decide."
Lotzen laughed lightly.