“I also can use the left hand, monsieur, but it brings the heart too near the point,” and he ripped me just over the heart at the last words. I do not know why, but I felt that he had spared me, and, sick with anger and shame, flew at him like a tiger-cat, putting forth all my cunning of fence, and he began to give slowly to the assault, but always with that strange, half-mocking smile on his face. He was giving ground, nevertheless, and I worked him in a half-circle from his original position, pressing him closer and closer each moment, fiercely, but warily withal, and at last the chance came. His blade seemed to yield to mine. It was now or never. I made the feint in tierce. He took the bait, and then, with all my strength, I gave him Touchet’s great thrust--and the next moment was disarmed. Ay! At that instant I thought I had reached his heart, his blade had twisted round mine like a snake, and with a turn of his arm, from the elbow to the wrist, he dragged the sword from my fingers, with such force and strength that it struck with a little clang against the rampart wall, and then, rebounding, fell white and glistening in the moonlight at our feet. We faced each other for a moment, and then he dropped his arm, and the hot shame surged to my forehead. “End it,” I said thickly, but he laughed. “There is yet time for another bout.” He stooped and picked up my sword, saying as he held it out to me, “I will say that there are scarcely three men in France who could have met that thrust--take your sword, monsieur.” Consider for a moment in what state I was. I was half mad with the tension of the past days. I had meant to kill this man when I came here; to kill him for a few trifling words; and in my heart I felt I was doing him honor to let him die by the sword of Vibrac. And what was the result? I found myself, for all my vaunted skill, a child in his hands; and he, the despised soldier of fortune, the man on whose fame there were a hundred blots, stood here giving me my life, and, what is more, giving me a lesson in perfect knighthood. I could not speak. My hand closed like a vise on the hilt of the sword Richelieu held out to me; but the cold steel itself was warm to my icy clutch. I stood before him, a curse trembling upon my lips and a hundred evil passions hissing like snakes at my heart. Richelieu did not understand. He spurred me with a gibe. “Come, monsieur! Or are we to have a new phrase instead of the Fever of St. Vallière?” I was stung to the quick. “You shall die for this,” I gasped, and he laughed once more as our blades crossed, and then--a dark shadow fell between us, and a stern voice cried: “Hold! What fool’s work is this?”