I looked at him in astonishment. There was a strange something in his eyes I had never seen there before; a mad, irresponsible something that cared not for consequences; a something that makes heroes of some men and murderers of others. I stood motionless. Slowly he pushed the point of his rapier through my coat-sleeve. It pricked into my arm and I felt a few drops of warm blood trickle. I did not wince. "Stop this infernal fooling," I cried angrily. He bent forward, in the attitude of fence with which he was so familiar. "Fooling, did you say? 'Gad! then, is this fooling?" He turned the rapier against my breast, ripping my shirt and lancing my flesh to the bone. I staggered back with a gasp. It was the act of a madman; and I knew in that moment that I was face to face with death by violence for the second time in a few hours. I slowly backed from him, but he followed me, step for step, As I came up against and sought the wall behind me for support, my hand came in contact with something hard. I closed my fingers over it. It was the handle of an old highland broadsword and the feel of it was not unpleasant. It lent a fresh flow to my blood. I tore the sword from its fastenings, and, in a second, I was standing facing my brother on a more equal, on a more satisfactory footing, determined to defend myself, blow for blow, against his inhuman, insane conduct. "Ho! ho!" he yelled. "A duel in the twentieth century. 'Gad! wouldn't this set London by the ears? The Corsican Brothers over again! "Come on, with your battle-axe, farmer Giles, Let's see what stuff you're made of--blood or sawdust." Twice he thrust at me and twice I barely avoided his dextrous onslaughts. I parried as he thrust, not daring to venture a return. Our strange weapons rang out and re-echoed, time and again, in the dread stillness of the isolated armoury. My left arm was smarting from the first wound I had received, and a few drops of blood trickled down over the back of my hand, splashing on the floor. "You bleed!--just like a human being, George. Who would have thought it?" gloated Harry with a taunt. He came at me again. My broadsword was heavy and, to me, unwieldy, while Harry's rapier was light and pliable. I could tell that there could be only one ending, if the unequal contest were prolonged,--I would be wounded badly, or killed outright. At that moment, I had no very special desire for either happening. Harry turned and twisted his weapon with the clever wrist movement for which he was famous in every fencing club in Britain; and every time I wielded my heavy weapon to meet his light one I thought I should never be in time to meet his counter-stroke, his recovery was so very much quicker than mine.