No sooner had the fight begun than my worst fears were realised, for I saw by the Prince's pose and the first few passes, that he was a practised swordsman. But he was fighting with a demon rather than with a man. I never saw a human being with such a fighting fury as Will, who sprang at him like a leopard. I do not see, however, how this should have prevailed, with Will's ignorance of fence, had not the mossy ground on which the Prince was standing proved rotten, as mossy ground will at times, the surface rubbing off and leaving a slippery mud. The Prince's foot slipped, and Will struck his sword out of his hand. The Prince called out to him to despatch him; but Will said, with his air, "My honour is satisfied--I am not one to kill a fallen man." The Prince protested that he should send fresh seconds the next morning, when the seconds on both sides decided that the duel could not proceed. And so the matter was left. You can imagine what shakings of the hand we gave Will as we took him back to the landing-place for having defended in such a way the honour of the ship; and I believe that our two lieutenants were settled in their own minds that there should be no second duel, considering the handsome way in which Will had given the Prince his life, though, with one of Will's temper, it was not easy to see how the duel was to be prevented, if the Prince sent fresh seconds, save by the authority of the Captain, who could confine him to the ship, or the Admiral. Considering that Will was one of the Admiral's staff, the First Lieutenant, his senior second, concluded to lay the whole matter before the Admiral when he came on board. And he came on board very soon afterwards in the highest of spirits, for he always loved a good day ashore as well as any A.B. in his fleet. "God bless my soul!" cried the Admiral, when he had heard the First Lieutenant's story, which, of course, was told in whispers that I did not overhear, "I'll go and see the young man--His Highness, I suppose I ought to call him--myself. I can't afford to delay the fleet if a breeze springs up to let us get at the French, and I hope that none of my officers will ever shirk a situation." The barge was still at the gangway, the Lieutenant had hailed them to await orders, and the Admiral prepared to descend. "Have you supped, sir?" asked the Lieutenant; and the Admiral without pausing replied, "I shall have a better appetite if I wait till this matter is finished." When he landed a few minutes afterwards, he hired a coach--there are always two or three hackneys at the landing-place with such a large fleet in port--and bade the man drive to the Prince of Favara's. The Prince was well known in Syracuse, though he had no palace of his own there, but was visiting with his uncle; and the man drove the Admiral without delay to the Palazzo Mont' alti.