There was now no light within but what was shed by the fire and two tallow candles that gutter’d on the mantelshelf. The remaining candlesticks lay in a pool of wine on the floor, amid broken glasses, bottles, scattered coins, dice boxes and pewter pots. In the corner to my right cower’d a potboy, with tankard dangling in his hand, and the contents spilling into his shoes. His wide terrified eyes were fix’d on the far end of the room, where Anthony and the brute Settle stood, with a shattered chair between them. Their swords were cross’d in tierce, and grating together as each sought occasion for a lunge: which might have been fair enough but for a dog-fac’d trooper in a frowsy black periwig, who, as I enter’d, was gathering a handful of coins from under the fallen table, and now ran across, sword in hand, to the Captain’s aid. ’Twas Anthony that fac’d me, with his heel against the wainscoting, and, catching my cry of alarm, he call’d out cheerfully over the Captain’s shoulder, but without lifting his eyes— “Just in time, Jack! Take off the second cur, that’s a sweet boy!” Now I carried no sword; but seizing the tankard from the potboy’s hand, I hurl’d it at the dog-fac’d trooper. It struck him fair between the shoulder blades; and with a yell of pain he spun round and came toward me, his point glittering in a way that turn’d me cold. I gave back a pace, snatch’d up a chair (that luckily had a wooden seat) and with my back against the door, waited his charge. ’Twas in this posture that, flinging a glance across the room, I saw the Captain’s sword describe a small circle of light, and next moment, with a sharp cry, Anthony caught at the blade, and stagger’d against the wall, pinn’d through the chest to the wainscoting. “Out with the lights, Dick!” bawl’d Settle, tugging out his point. “Quick, fool—the window!” Dick, with a back sweep of his hand, sent the candles flying off the shelf; and, save for the flicker of the hearth, we were in darkness. I felt, rather than saw, his rush toward me; leap’d aside; and brought down my chair with a crash on his skull. He went down like a ninepin, but scrambled up in a trice, and was running for the window. There was a shout below as the Captain thrust the lattice open: another, and the two dark forms had clambered through the purple square of the casement, and dropped into the bowling-green below. By this, I had made my way across the room, and found Anthony sunk against the wall, with his feet outstretched. There was something he held out toward me, groping for my hand and at the same time whispering in a thick, choking voice— “Here, Jack, here: pocket it quick!” ’Twas a letter, and as my fingers closed on it they met a damp smear, the meaning of which was but too plain. “Button it—sharp—in thy breast: now feel for my sword.” “First let me tend thy hurt, dear lad.”