I felt a sudden chill as I looked
at him: a qualm, a tremor, a presentiment. What was it the
little tailor had said? That I should--but there, he did not
know. What did he know of such things? If I let this pass I
must kill a man a day, or leave Paris and the eating-house, and
starve.
'A thousand pardons,' I said gravely, as I drew and took my
place. 'A dun. I am sorry that the poor devil caught me so
inopportunely. Now however, I am at your service.'
He saluted and we crossed swords and began. But from the first I
had no doubt what the result would be. The slippery stones and
fading light gave him, it is true, some chance, some advantage,
more than he deserved; but I had no sooner felt his blade than I
knew that he was no swordsman. Possibly he had taken half-a-
dozen lessons in rapier art, and practised what he learned with
an Englishman as heavy and awkward as himself. But that was all.
He made a few wild clumsy rushes, parrying widely. When I had
foiled these, the danger was over, and I held him at my mercy.
I played with him a little while, watching the sweat gather on
his brow and the shadow of the church tower fall deeper and
darker, like the shadow of doom, on his face.
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