“It isn’t played out yet, you know,” says he. “Perhaps your friends will find Jotunberg a tougher nut to crack than they imagined. And if they do—well, they’ll find twin corpses to cheer ’em up!” He flicked out his point, and I parried it and sprang away. He laughed at that. “Don’t like cold steel, do we? We’ll like it even less in a minute. Come on guard, curse you!”

I couldn’t fly; he’d have had his point through my back in a twinkling. So I had to fight. Not many foemen have seen old Flashy’s face in battle, but Rudi was destined to be one of them, and I couldn’t have had a more deadly opponent. I knew he would be as practised with a sword as he was with a knife or a pistol, which put him well above my touch, but there was nothing for it but to grip my hilt with a sweating hand and defend myself as long as I could. I could only one faint hope; if he was so greedy for my blood that he wasn’t going to let his pals intervene, there was just a chance that I might hold him off long enough for Sapten to overcome the defenders—if I wasn’t a swordsman of his brilliance, I was at least as good as the master-at-arms of the 11th Hussars could make me, and I was strong enough, while Rudi must be weakened by the smash on the head I had given him.

Perhaps the thought showed in my face, for he laughed again and took a cut at me.

“You can have your choice of how you die,” jeers he. “A nice thrust? Or a good backhand cut—it can take a head off very pretty, as I’m sure you know!”

And with that he came in, foot and hand, and had me fighting for my life as I fell back across the hall. His blade was everywhere, now darting at my face, now at my chest; now slashing at my left flank, now at my head—how I parried those thrusts and sweeps is beyond me, for he was faster than any man I’d ever met, and his wrist was like a steel spring. He drove me back to the foot of the stairs and then dropped his point, laughing, while he glanced towards the main gate, where the pistols were cracking away, and the smoke was drifting back like mist into the hall.

“Stand to ’em, Krafstein!” he shouted. “What, they’re only a pack of ploughmen! Fire away, boys! Sweep ’em into the lake!”

He waved his sabre in encouragement, and I seized the chance to take a wild slash at his head. By God, I nearly had him, too, but his point was up in the nick of time, and then he was driving in at me again, snarling and thrusting with such speed that I had to duck under his blade and run for it.