"If I had a sword!" Tignonville hissed, his face livid with rage. "You call me coward, because I will not die to please you. But give me a sword, and I will show you if I am a coward!" Tavannes stood still. "You are there, are you?" he said in an altered tone. "I--" "Give me a sword," Tignonville repeated, holding out his open trembling hands. "A sword! A sword! 'Tis easy taunting an unarmed man, but--" "You wish to fight?" "I ask no more! No more! Give me a sword," he urged, his voice quivering with eagerness. "It is you who are the coward!" Count Hannibal stared at him. "And what am I to get by fighting you?" he reasoned slowly. "You are in my power. I can do with you as I please. I can call from this window and denounce you, or I can summon my men--" "Coward! Coward!" "Ay? Well, I will tell you what I will do," with a subtle smile. "I will give you a sword, M. de Tignonville, and I will meet you foot to foot here, in this room, on a condition." "What is it? What is it?" the young man cried with incredible eagerness. "Name your condition!" "That if I get the better of you, you find me a minister." "I find you a--" "A minister. Yes, that is it. Or tell me where I can find one." The young man recoiled. "Never!" he said. "You know where to find one." "Never! Never!" "You can lay your hand on one in five minutes, you know." "I will not." "Then I shall not fight you!" Count Hannibal answered coolly; and he turned from him, and back again. "You will pardon me if I say, M. de Tignonville, that you are in as many minds about fighting as about dying! I do not think that you would have made your fortune at Court. Moreover, there is a thing which I fancy you have not considered. If we fight you may kill me, in which case the condition will not help me much. Or I--which is more likely--" he added, with a harsh smile, "may kill you, and again I am no better placed." The young man's pallid features betrayed the conflict in his breast. To do him justice, his hand itched for the sword-hilt--he was brave enough for that; he hated, and only so could he avenge himself. But the penalty if he had the worse! And yet what of it? He was in hell now, in a hell of humiliation, shame, defeat, tormented by this fiend! 'Twas only to risk a lower hell. At last, "I will do it!" he cried hoarsely. "Give me a sword and look to yourself." "You promise?" "Yes, yes, I promise!" "Good," Count Hannibal answered suavely, "but we cannot fight so, we must have more light." And striding to the door he opened it, and calling the Norman bade him move the table and bring candles--a dozen candles; for in the narrow streets the light was waning, and in the half-shuttered room it was growing dusk. Tignonville, listening with a throbbing brain, wondered that the attendant expressed no surprise and said no word--until Tavannes added to his orders one for a pair of swords.