“Come down, Captain Page, and surrender your sword,” he commanded, soberly stern; and the brabble of voices ceased and a sudden hush fell on the room. Also, I noticed when Castner spoke and all eyes were turned to my landing, Champe drew back behind the more forward ones in the crowd and I saw him no more. Now that the suspense was ended and open war was declared, I felt better and could even lean over the stair-rail and laugh down upon these king’s bush-beaters. “You want my sword, Lieutenant?” I retorted. “I’ll give it to you, or to any man whose need is greater than my own--always provided that you or he will take it point foremost.” “I make the demand in the king’s name,” said Castner, refusing to be either joked or jarred out of his even-toned soberness. And then he added, out of the heart of friendliness, I do think: “I wouldn’t make it harder for you than I must, Captain Page. You should see that resistance is madness.” “I see that you may order your men to train their muskets on me and bring me down bird-wise, Mr. Castner. I do assure you it will be far more merciful than those other designs you have on me.” He took me at my word with a soldierly disregard for further parleyings. In a trice he had cleared the space to the stair-foot, and had given the order to five of his musketeers. When their pieces were leveled he gave me one more chance. “Once more, and for the last time, will you come down and render yourself, Captain Page?” “With pleasure!” I cried; and whipping the rapier from its sheath I vaulted over the stair-rail and fell upon him so heartily that he was driven fairly back among his musket men before he could bare steel and defend himself. Lord! but there was a scattering among those gaping lookers-on! Never have I seen buyers in the eagerest market so anxious to get to the front--only their front was the rear. With an onset so vigorous and unexpected, I might have cut and thrust my way to the door, if it had not been for the cursed little gray-coated spy, James Askew. But at the charging instant he dodged to get behind me, and I knew better than to leave an enemy of his temper unaccounted for in the rear. My foining to get a side-thrust at the spy gave Castner his chance to draw; and in another breath we were at it, hammer and tongs, Castner striving manfully to press me to the wall, and Dickie Page fighting as a man fights when he knows that his hours are strictly numbered, and who asks no more of this world and his enemies therein than the chance to die while his blood is leaping battle-warm. It was the cur Askew who ended it, after all, though not as he meant to, I’ll dare swear. In our stamping rushes and thrustings and parryings, Castner and I had him penned in a corner, and at length, in a wide flanconade, my sword’s point touched him on the outward sweep to line. With a yelp like that of a pricked dog, he darted out of his corner and made to get away, rushing blindly into the zone of whistling sword blades.