Many voices spoke the word "Amen" as he stopped, turning to beckon into the gloom about us. I was now quite over my confusion. I began to look about me and get my bearings. I could hear a stir in the crowd beyond the lights, and a murmur of voices. Reflecting lanterns from many pillars near by shot their rays upon me. I stood on a platform, some thirty feet square, in the middle of a large room. Its floor was on a level with the faces of the many who stood pressing to the row of lights, Here, I took it, I was to fight for my life, I was looking at the yawning grave in the corner of this arena, when four men ascended with swords and pistols. One of them removed the shackles, letting my hands free. I thanked him as he tossed them aside. I was thinking of D'ri, and, shading my eyes, looked off in the gloom to see if I could discover him. I called his name, but heard no answer. His Lordship came over to me, bringing a new sword. He held the glittering blade before me, its hilt in his right hand, its point resting on the fingers of his left. "It's good," said he, quietly; "try it." It was a beautiful weapon, its guard and pommel and quillons sparkling with wrought-silver, its grip of yellow leather laced with blue silk. The glow and the feel of it filled me with a joy I had not known since my father gave me the sword of my childhood. It drove the despair out of me, and I was a new man. I tried the blade, its point upon my toe. It was good metal, and the grip fitted me. "Well, how do you find it?" said he, impatiently. "I am satisfied," was my reply. He helped me take off my blouse and waistcoat, and then I rolled my sleeves to the elbow. The hum of voices had grown louder. I could hear men offering to bet and others bantering for odds. "We'll know soon," said a voice near me, "whether he could have killed Ronley in a fair fight." I turned to look at those few in the arena. There were half a dozen of them now, surrounding my adversary, a man taller than the rest, with a heavy neck and brawny arms and shoulders. He had come out of the crowd unobserved by me. He also was stripped to the shirt, and had rolled up his sleeves, and was trying the steel. He had a red, bristling mustache and overhanging brows and a vulgar face--not that of a man who settles his quarrel with the sword. I judged a club or a dagger would have been better suited to his genius. But, among fighters, it is easy to be fooled by a face. In a moment the others had gone save his Lordship and that portly bald-headed man I had heard him rebuke as "Sir Charles." My adversary met me at the centre of the arena, where we shook hands. I could see, or thought I could, that he was entering upon a business new to him, for there was in his manner an indication of unsteady nerves. "Gentlemen, are you ready?" said his Lordship.