"By the splendour of God!" he cried, springing from his seat with the oath that had been the founder's favourite, "you shall not use me so! You shall have neither terms nor trial, except that which is the birthright of every man!"
"Does your majesty threaten me?" said Turbo, trying to keep up the insolent tone he had adopted, though in truth feeling he was faced by a force that was beyond his control.
"That is what I do!" cried the King, drawing the glittering rapier on which his hand was laid. "You have outraged the woman I have sworn to protect, and, by the soul of the knight! here and now we will see whose she shall be. Take your sword, you double cur and coward! take it, or receive my point where you stand!"
With that he fell en garde, with his blade straight at the Chancellors throat. Turbo saw the time for words was gone by. They had often fenced together, and he knew, in spite of his lameness, he was the better man. Yet so fiercely did the King's eye fix his, that it was with no sense of ease that he took up his sword from the table at his side, where Dolabella had laid it.
With such fury did Kophetua attack when they were once engaged that Turbo had to give ground fast. Already he was forced against a table, and was barely defending himself with his utmost skill, when the door burst open, and Dolabella, alarmed by the quick clink of steel, rushed in, followed by the gendarme and two files of the Palace Watch. Kophetua retreated immediately, and dropped his point.
"You come most inopportunely," said the King angrily.
"Nay, your majesty," said the General. "Permit me to say most opportunely."
"Yes, most opportunely, with your majesty's pardon," echoed the officer, to whom Dolabella had confided the King's difficulty about the Chancellor's arrest. "I can take his excellency red-handed, and no trial will be necessary now."
It was true. The officer of gendarmes knew his work well, and valued at its true worth his favourite and most dreaded weapon—red-handed justice. He was quick enough to see that here was a solution of the difficulty which his commander had confided to him.
For a moment the King hesitated before the temptation, but it was a meanness of which he was incapable.