There is a narrow street which runs the whole length of the city, parallel with the Strada Reale, which was celebrated as the dueling ground of the Knights. The reason for this selection was because a combat in this circumscribed passageway might be looked upon in the light of a casual encounter, or an accidental collision. This was a very weak deduction, but it appears to have sufficed for the purpose. The fact was, that a challenge which had passed between two Knights, no matter what the circumstances were, could not be ignored by them, or a personal encounter avoided, any more than such an occurrence could be disregarded among the swashbucklers of Dumas's musketeers. The instinct of the sword, so to speak, was stronger with these professed religionists than was any other recognized principle. The combatants were bound, however, by some recognized palliating rules: for instance, to put up their swords upon the interference of a brother Knight, an officiating priest, or a woman, which may be interpreted as an attempt to draw a line of prevention about this barbaric custom of settling private disputes with the sword. When a fatal conflict occurred on the Strada Stretta, a cross painted or cut upon the house front nearest to the spot ever after indicated the event. There used to be a long line of these significant signs upon this thoroughfare, but nearly all are obliterated, some by design and others by the wear of time. The records of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries teem with entries of stabbing, wounding, and killing among the Knights, the result of encounters upon the Strada Stretta. When there was a common enemy to encounter, and upon whom to expend their surplus energy, the Knights were as one man, living together in comparative harmony, but in days of peace they were only too ready to turn their weapons against each other in heated quarrels.