"You bleed!—just like a human being, George. Who would have thought it?" gloated Harry with a taunt.
He came at me again.
My broadsword was heavy and, to me, unwieldy, while Harry's rapier was light and pliable. I could tell that there could be only one ending, if the unequal contest were prolonged,—I would be wounded badly, or killed outright. At that moment, I had no very special desire for either happening.
Harry turned and twisted his weapon with the clever wrist movement for which he was famous in every fencing club in Britain; and every time I wielded my heavy weapon to meet his light one I thought I should never be in time to meet his counter-stroke, his recovery was so very much quicker than mine.
He played with me thus for a time which seemed an eternity. My breath began to come in great gasps. Suddenly he lunged at me with all his strength, throwing the full weight of his body recklessly behind his stroke, so sure was he, evidently, that it would find its mark. I sprang aside just in time, bringing my broadsword down on his rapier and sending six inches of the point of it clattering to the floor.
"Damn the thing!" he blustered, taking a firmer grip of what steel remained in his hand.
"Aren't you satisfied? Won't you stop this madness?" I panted, my voice sounding loud and hollow in the stillness around us.
For answer he grazed my cheek with his jagged steel, letting a little more blood and hurting sufficiently to cause me to wince.
"Got you again, you see," he chuckled, pushing up his sleeves and pulling his tie straight. "George, dear boy, I'll have you in mincemeat before I get at any of your well-covered vitals."
A blind fury seized me. I drove in on him. He turned me aside with a grin and thrust heavily at me in return. I darted to the left, making no endeavour to push aside his weapon with my own but relying only on the agility of my body. With an oath, he floundered forward, and before he could recover I brought the flat of my heavy broadsword crashing down on the top of his head. His arm went up with a nervous jerk and his rapier flew from his hand, shattering against a high window and sending the broken glass rattling on to the cement walk below.