“Stand and fight, damn you!” cries he, coming after me. “Are you all white-livered, you damned British? Stand and fight!”

“What for?” I shouted. “So that you can show off your sabre-work, you foreign mountebank? Come and get me if you’re so bloody clever! Come on!”

It was the last thing I’d have thought of saying to anybody, normally, but I knew what I was doing. I’d noticed, as he turned to follow me, that he had staggered a little, and as he stood now, poised to lunge, he was swaying unsteadily from side to side. He was groggy from his wound, and tiring, too; for all his speed and skill he wasn’t as strong a man as I. If I could lure him away from the hall, away from the chance to call in his men, I might be able to exhaust him sufficiently to disable or kill him; at least I might hold him in play until Sapten and his damned dilatory Danes came on the scene. So I fell back towards the dungeon doorway, calling him an Austrian pimp, a bedroom bravo, a Heidelberg whoremaster, and anything else that came to mind.

Possibly he didn’t need this kind of encouragement; it only seemed to amuse him, but he came after me hard enough, stamp-stamp-stamp, with arm and sabre straight as a lance when he lunged. I retreated along the passage nimbly, keeping him at full stretch, and got my footing on the steps. After that it was easier, for whoever had built the steps had known his business; they spiralled down to the right, so that I could fight with the wall to cover my open flank, while his was exposed.

“You can’t run forever,” cries he, cutting back-handed.

“So they told Wellington,” says I, taking it on my hilt. “Why didn’t you learn to fence properly, you opera-house buffoon?”

“Sticks and stones,” laughs he. “We’ll have room enough in a moment, and see how well you can fence without a wall to burrow under.”

He came down the stairs at a run, thrusting close to the wall, and I had to jump away and scramble downwards for dear life. He was at my back on the instant, but I won clear with a couple of swinging cuts and went headlong down the steps, stumbling at the bottom and only regaining my balance just in time as he followed me into the open.

“Close thing that time, play-actor,” says he, pausing to brush the hair out of his eyes. He was breathing heavy, but so was I; if he didn’t tire soon I was done for. He came at me slowly, circling his point warily, and then sprang, clash-clash, and I fell back before him. We were in the low cloister now, with plenty of pillars for me to dodge round, but try as I might I found him forcing me back towards the lighted arch leading to the guard room and Carl Gustaf’s cell. He was fighting at full pitch, his point leaping at me like quicksilver, and it was all I could do to keep my skin intact as he drove me through into the lighted area.