There was a bar at a window in the wall bending outward in shape like the letter U.
"Then strike a cutting stroke with your left hand."
Sholto took the sword. It seemed to him short-sighted policy that in the hour of his departure on a perilous quest he should disable himself in both arms. But Sholto MacKim was not the youth to question an order. He lifted the sword in his left hand, and with a strong ungraceful motion struck with all his might.
At first he thought that he had missed altogether. There was no tingling in his arm, no jar when the blade should have encountered the iron. But the Countess was examining the centre of the hoop.
"I have missed," said Sholto.
"Come hither and look," she said, without turning round.
And when he looked, lo, the thick iron had been cut through almost without bending. The sides of the break were fresh, bright, and true.
"Now look at the edge of your sword," she said.
There was no slightest dint anywhere upon it, so that Sholto, armourer's son as he was, turned about the blade to see if by any chance he could have smitten with the reverse.
Failing in this, he could only kneel to his lady and say, "This is a great gift—I am not worthy."