"I'll play ball with thy head!" cried Ali contemptuously.
"And I'll make a broom of thy beard!" retorted Banfi.
"I'll have thy coat-of-arms nailed up over my stables!"
"And thy skin, stuffed with sawdust, shall serve me as a scarecrow!"
"Thou rebellious slave!"
"Thou barber's apprentice turned general."
Every abusive epithet was accompanied by a fresh and furious blow.
"Thou dishonourable girl-snatcher," cried the Pasha, with foaming mouth. "Thou dost filch Turkish maidens for thy unclean embraces; therefore will I carry off thy wife and make her the lowest slave in my harem."
To Banfi the world seemed all at once to be turning round and round. His soul had received three wounds, which quite divested him of humanity.
"Thou accursed devil," he roared, gnashing his teeth, seized his csakany by the middle with both hands, sprang closer to Ali, and whirled his weapon with lightning-like rapidity over his head, so that it flew round and round in his hands like the sail of a windmill, crashing down now with its axe-head, now with its bullet-shaped nether end on his antagonist's shield, and attacking and defending himself at the same time. Ali Pasha, confused at this altogether novel mode of attack, would have retired; but the two war-horses, furiously biting each other about the head and neck, were now taking part in the contest of their masters, and could not be parted.