My first thought, and I am not ashamed to confess it, when I felt my steel meet the steel of my foe, was one of arrant and tumultuous fear. I had never before crossed swords with anyone in deadly hatred; and in my case the thing was the harder, for the feeling against my cousin was not so violent a passion as to make me heedless of aught else. Before me, behind the back of my antagonist, the thick underwood was already filled with the twittering of birds, and a great feeling of longing came upon me to get well through with the affair and escape death. For now a feeling which I had not reckoned with came to oppress me—the fear of death. Had my wits been more about me, I might have reflected that my cousin was too good a swordsman to kill me and lay himself open to many penalties. But my mind was in such a confusion that I could think of naught but an overwhelming danger. Howbeit, in a little this fit passed, and once more I was myself. Gilbert, for what reason I know not, fenced swiftly and violently. Blow came upon blow till I scarce could keep my breath. I fell at once upon the defensive, and hazarded never a cut, but set all my powers to preserving my skin. And in truth this was no easy task, for he had acquired a villainous trick of passing suddenly from the leg-cut to the head-stroke, so that more than once I came not up to guard in time and had his sword almost among my hair. I could not guess what he meant by this strategy, for I had ever believed that a man who began in a hot-fit ended in a languor. He sought, I doubt not, to speedily put an end to the encounter by putting forth his greater strength, hoping to beat down my guard or bewilder me with the multiplicity of his flourishes. Now this conduct of my opponent had an effect the very counter of what he proposed. I became completely at my ease; indeed, I swear I never felt more cool in my life. This has ever been the way with me, for I have always been at my best in the extremest perils. Oftentimes when things went very sore with me, I was at a loss and saw no way of escape; but let them get a little worse and I was ready to meet them. So now I was on the watch to frustrate every moment, and since no man can fight rapidly and fight well, I kept him at bay till he deemed it prudent to give up this method.