Nan’s sudden scream of fear and the clash of the two blades rang out at the same moment. The Colonel’s parry followed on into the enveloping movement of a _riposte_ that whirled his point straight at the Duke’s face on the low level to which this had been brought by the lunge. To avoid it, Buckingham was forced to make a recovery, a retreat as precipitate as the advance had been swift. Erect once more, his grace fell back, his breathing quickened a little, and for a moment the two men stood in silence, their points lowered, measuring each other with their eyes. Then Holles spoke. “Your grace, this is a game in which the dice are heavily cogged against you,” he said gravely. “Better take the course I first proposed.” Buckingham uttered a sneering laugh. He had entirely mistaken the other’s meaning. “Why, you roaring captain, you pitiful Bobadil, do you think to affright me with swords and antics? It is against yourself the dice are loaded. Unlock that door, and get you hence or I’ll carve you into ribbons.” “Oho! And who’s the roaring captain now? Who the Bobadil? Who the very butcher of a silk button?” cried Holles, stung to anger. He would have added more, perhaps, but the Duke stemmed him. “Enough talk!” he snapped. “The key, you rogue, or I’ll skewer you where you stand.” Holles grinned at him. “I little thought when I saved your life that night at Worcester that I should be faced with the need to take it thus.” “You think to move me with that reminder, do you?” said the Duke, and drove at him. “Hardly. I’ll move you in another way, you lovelorn ninnyhammer,” Holles snarled back. And then the blades ground together again, and they were engaged in deadly earnest. CHAPTER XIX THE BATTLE I do not suppose that any two men ever engaged with greater confidence than those. Doubt of the issue was in the mind of neither. Each regarded the other half contemptuously, as a fool rushing upon his doom. Holles was a man of his hands, trained in the hardest school of all, and although for some months now sword-practice had been a thing neglected by him, yet it never occurred to him that he should find serious opposition in a creature whose proper environment was the Court rather than the camp. The Duke of Buckingham, whilst making no parade of the fact, was possibly the best blade of his day in England. He, too, after all, had known his years of adversity and adventurous vagrancy, years in which he had devoted a deal of study to the sword, for which he was gifted with a natural aptitude. Of great coolness in danger, vigorous and agile of frame, he had a length of reach which would still give him an advantage on those rare occasions where all else was equal. He regarded the present affair merely as a tiresome interruption to be brushed aside as speedily as possible.