"Very good. We had better fight here in the shade."
They went apart, stripped off coats and waistcoats, and rolled up the sleeves of their sword-arms. De Rothan posed, and made a series of rapid passes and parries, ending the display with a whirl of the sword. He felt the muscles of his right shoulder, and smiled. His forearm was thin and white, and shaded with black hairs.
"More supple than most young men's! You have a fine arm, sir, the arm of a ploughboy. Come—I am at your service."
They took ground, saluted, and crossed swords, De Rothan resting his weight on his left foot, and holding his head with a kind of high fierceness. His eyes looked dangerous yet amused.
Jasper called to mind Jeremy's advice. De Rothan was a man whose vanity might be played with, and who might be lured into despising his opponent. It takes a subtle swordsman to ape clumsiness, and yet to keep a clever adversary out. Jasper tried it, and was nearly run through the shoulder for his pains. The Frenchman's point tore his shirt.
De Rothan's face with its fierce and arrogant eyes was like a foul word flung in Jasper's mouth. His hatred aimed for a body thrust. His swordsmanship caught a sudden flash of brilliance. He had his chance and took it, and saw blood on the Frenchman's shirt.
It was a skin wound, but De Rothan leapt back with a cry of savage surprise. His eyes looked beyond Jasper for the moment to where the head and shoulders of a man showed from behind a tree trunk.
Jasper caught the look, but had to keep face foremost and meet the return rush of De Rothan's sword. The man Gaston had come out from behind the tree, and had his fist raised, whirling a stone. It did no more than strike Jasper between the shoulders, but it staggered him sufficiently to let in De Rothan's sword.
Run through the sword-arm, he was seized from behind, thrown down, with De Rothan, Gaston, and another man on top of him. Grim, silent, yet violent figures, they wasted no words. Jasper's sword was kicked away. He was rolled over on his face, his arms tied behind his back, and his ankles lashed together. Then they lifted him between them, carried him into the thick of the underwood, and threw him down at the foot of a clump of hazels.
De Rothan spoke to Gaston.