Peck's back was toward the precipice-brink at the commencement of the engagement, but neither had much the advantage, as the moon was almost directly overhead. As their weapons began to flash and clink, the slender keen echoes fell over into the yawning chasm and went rattling down the steep, ragged face of the precipice. They were vigorous and rather good fencers and it would have been evident to an onlooker of experience that the fight was to be a long one, notwithstanding the great weight of the swords they were using. They soon began to fight fiercely and grew more vehemently aggressive each second, their blows and thrusts and parries and counter-cuts following each other faster and faster until the sounds ran together and the sparks leaped and shone even in the bright moonlight. They mingled broad-sword exercise with legitimate rapier fencing and leaped about each other like boxers, their weapons whirling, darting, rising, falling, whilst their breathing became loud and heavy. It was a scene to have stirred the blood of men and women four hundred years ago, when love was worth fighting for and when men were quite able and willing to fight for it. The combatants strained every point of their strength and skill, and not a drop of blood could either draw. Slash, thrust, whack, clink, clank, clack, click, cling! Round and round they labored, the fury of their efforts flaming out of their eyes and concentrating in the deep lines of their mouths. As if to listen, the breeze lay still in the trees and the great owl quit hooting in the ravine. Faster and faster fell the blows, swifter and keener leaped the thrusts, quicker and surer the parries were interposed. The swords were hacked and notched like hand-saws, the blades shook and hummed like lyre-cords. Now close to the cliff's edge, now over by the heap of broken stones and then close beside the clump of oak bushes, the men, panting and sweating, their muscles knotted, their sinews leaping like bow-strings, their eyes standing out, as if starting from their sockets, pursued each other without a second's rest or wavering. At last, with an irresistible spurt of fury, Crane drove Peck right into the bushes with a great crash and would not let him out. The critic was not vanquished, however, for, despite the foliage and twigs, he continued to parry and thrust with dangerous accuracy and force. Just at this point a strange thing happened. Right behind Peck there was a tearing, crashing sound and a cry, loud, keen, despairing, terrible, followed immediately by the noise of a body descending among the cedars growing along the face of the awful precipice. It was a woman's voice, shrieking in deadly horror that then came up out of the dizzy depth of space below! The men let fall their swords and leaped to the edge of the cliff with the common thought that it was Miss Moyne who had fallen over. They reeled back giddy and sick, staggering as if drunken.