Miguel de Montalvan, the Count of Zamora, was made of good stuff, as he ought to be, according to his lineage. He was fighting for his children’s honour, and he knew how to use a rapier. Two wounded roysterers on the floor showed that, though his hair was white, his arm was not benumbed with age. And now, with his slender Toledo blade, he was holding his own against the bayonet of his third antagonist, a man of twice his strength and weight--the very same tall grenadier who had pegged Major Clumps to the door of the house, and swung him so despitefully. At the further end of the room two young and beautiful ladies stood or knelt, in horrible dread and anguish. It was clear at a glance that they were sisters, although they behaved very differently. For one was kneeling in a helpless manner, with streaming eyes, and strained hands clasping the feet of a marble crucifix. She had not the courage to look at the conflict, but started convulsively from her prayers at clash of steel or stamp of foot. The other stood firmly, with her hair thrown back, one hand laid on her sister’s head and the other grasping a weapon, her lips set hard and her pale cheeks rigid, while her black eyes never left the face of the man who was striking at her father. At the first glance Hilary knew her to be the brave girl who had escaped to the hall, and returned to share her sister’s fate. Things cannot be always done chivalrously, or in true heroic fashion. From among the legs of the reeling Britons (who, with pipes and bottles and shouts of applause, were watching the central combat) Hilary snatched up with his left hand a good-sized wine-bag, roughly rent at the neck, but still containing a part of its precious charge. The rogues had discovered it in the cellar, and guessed that its contents were good. And now, as the owner of the house, hard pressed and unable to reach his long-armed foe, was forced to give way, with the point of the bayonet almost entering his breast, and bearing him back on his daughters, Lorraine, with a sweep of his left arm, brought the juicy bag down on the back of the head of the noble grenadier. At the blow, the rent opened and discharged a gallon of fine old crusted port and beeswing down the warrior’s locks, and into his eyes, and the nape of his neck. Blinded with wine, and mad with passion, he rushed at his new assailant; but the Count, as he turned, passed his rapier neatly between the tendons of his right arm. Down fell his musket, and Hilary seized it, and pointed it at the owner’s breast. And now the grenadier remembered what he had quite forgotten throughout his encounter with the Spaniard--his musket was loaded, and on the full cock! So he dropped (like a grebe or goosander diving), having seen smart practice with skirmishers.