Indeed it was not! The young men were fighting with naked rapiers! In most of the students’ duels the points of the weapons were capped with buttons to make them less dangerous, or if the engagements were to be with broadswords, the opponents wore breastplates and heavy gauntlets and helmets. But here stood two young men without a single precaution against injury, and it was quite evident that one of them would have been badly wounded, had not the scholar brought the fight to an end. “What means this?” he repeated. “Who may you be?” Holding the lantern close up to the face of the nearer, he cried out suddenly in astonishment, “Johann Tring! As much would I have thought of seeing you here as I would have of seeing our own Lord Cardinal. You whom I thought more a slave to a crucible than to a sword. And your name?” he thundered at the other. “Conrad Mlynarki of Mazovia,” answered the student, thrusting his weapon back into his girdle and letting his eyes drop for shame. “A Mazovian! Well, it rejoices me that you are ashamed, and there was perhaps reason for your anger, since I hear that Mazovians are insulted without much thought these days. Go to your room! I will hear your story to-morrow. And you”—he turned to the remnants of the original crowd, those few who remained, maliciously hoping to see punishment meted out to the offenders—“betake yourselves to your bursars with all possible speed, for if I see one of you here when I return, I will notify the authorities in the morning.” “As to you, Johann Tring,” he addressed the other student when he stood alone with him in the middle of the street, “are you not ashamed at such a public brawl?” “I am not,” said the student quickly and without flinching at the look which Jan Kanty gave him. At this moment Pan Andrew and the others came up to them. In the light of the lantern Joseph glanced at the face of the student, Johann Tring, and received almost a shock—a feeling at least of violent repulsion. It was not that the face was distorted, indeed it was not, the eyes were bright and piercing, and the hair was black—the carriage of the body was erect, and the whiteness of the skin where the collar was rolled back stood in remarkable contrast to the hair and the blackness that lay about him. But the nose was thin and mean, the mouth was small and smug, and out of the eyes came a look that signified an utterly selfish spirit behind them. For one so young this expression was strange, and even more than strange; it was unnatural, and this unnaturalness was more apparent, even, to a boy of Joseph’s age than it might have been to an older and maturer man who was used to much selfishness and meanness in the world. “Now what caused this quarrel?” Joseph heard the scholar ask the question rather sharply. “It is too long to tell at once——” “Yes, but briefly.” “He insulted me.” “What did he say?”