Pizarro had risen. He was silent, but the deathly pallor of his countenance and the sudden cat-like contraction of the pupils of his eyes, burning with animosity in the shadow of his scowl, spoke his rage more plainly than an outburst. And they were more dangerously significant. A scar across his forehead, which Cristoval had never noted before, now showed itself in a thin line and blue, the color of his lips. The sparse black beard seemed more than ever straggling against the sickly yellow-white of his cheeks, and the muscles about his mouth twitched in a ferocious semblance of a grin, as if to bare his teeth. But he spoke no word. He grasped for his sword. It was not at his side, and with a curse he leaped toward his chamber where it lay. Dominguez sprang to his feet with sword half drawn. Pizarro shouted to him in a voice of fury:— "Call the guard! Kill him, Dominguez! Kill him!" Dominguez dashed to the door and threw it open, calling: "Ho, the guard! The guard!" and turned upon Cristoval with his sword. The latter sprang forward to meet him, and engaged his blade before he had made a step. There was a second’s sharp play, and Dominguez went down with a groan, senseless from a cut which laid open his head. The sentinel rushed in, and stood for an instant transfixed. "Kill him! Kill him, dolt! Why standest thou?" bellowed Pizarro, charging from his door sword in hand. The soldier stepped back and swung his halberd. The weapon swished viciously, narrowly avoided by a sidestep, and before he could recover for another stroke Cristoval closed upon him and ran him through. Then, throwing his weight against the heavy door, he closed it with a bang and shot the bolt. Pizarro was upon him, and he sprang back barely in time to avoid a lunge. So impetuous was the commander’s onslaught that Cristoval was forced several paces to the rear, put to his best to ward the rapid cuts and thrusts which followed. Pizarro, unaware of the mail beneath his adversary’s doublet, and emboldened by the security in his own armor, threw caution to the winds. He crowded with dire impatience to avenge the recent insult. He attacked like a demon, pressing forward in so fierce and disorderly assault that Cristoval’s defence was for a time disorganized and wild. He strove desperately to gather himself, and to feel and hold Pizarro’s blade with his own, or to check his impetuosity by _riposte_; but for the last there was no time, and the savage lunges came in so swift succession that he avoided them only by giving ground, until he was driven back almost to the wall. At last Pizarro, feinting a cut at his head, reached him with the point full in the breast, so heavily that the blade, catching in the links of the mail, bent nearly double, and Cristoval was hurled by the impact bodily against the wall. At the unlooked-for resistance encountered by his sword and its revelation of the unsuspected armor, the commander uttered a grunt of