The cloud that had hung upon Cornbury’s face at the beginning of the combat had disappeared, and with a childish delight in the clash of arms he watched his friend slowly but surely steal away the offensive power of the Dutchman, whose look of confidence had been replaced by a lightness of eye and a quivering of the forehead and lips which denoted the gravest quandary of uncertainty. Monsieur Mornay was breathing rapidly, but his brows were as level, his eye as clear, his hand as steady as when he had begun. In a few moments the struggle which had promised such dire results became a farce. The Frenchman had suddenly assumed the offensive, and, beating down the guard of the other, began pricking him gently, with rare skill and discrimination, in different conspicuous parts of his anatomy. The chevalier’s weapon was sharp, and the skin of Yan Gratz was tender, but so nicely were the thrusts of the Frenchman tempered to the occasion that they did no more than draw a small quantity of blood at each place, which oozed forth in patches upon his moist and clinging shirt, so that he presently resembled some huge, spotted animal of an unknown species which disaster might have driven from his fastnesses in the deep. It would have been a remarkable exhibition of skill with a cut-and-thrust sword or a rapier, but with a half-pike it was little less than marvelous. Yan Gratz struggled on, his tired arms vainly striving against the Frenchman’s assaults. Once, when the Dutchman had been disarmed, Monsieur Mornay generously allowed him to regain his weapon, choosing the advantage of Yan Gratz’s posture, however, to complete the circle of his punctures by a prick in the seat of his honor, which quickly straightened him again. When the game had gone far enough, and the pallid pasty face of Yan Gratz was so suffused that it looked little less red than his nose or the blood upon his shirt, and his gasps for breath were become so short that they threatened to come no more at all, Monsieur Mornay threw his weapon down upon the deck and, breathing deeply, folded his arms and stood at rest. “Mynheer,” he said, “it was a mistake to have begun. I am the best half-pikeman in France.”