“Why did you stop them, sir?  And where was your sword?” he said in great anger.  Del Ferice was leaning upon his friend; a greenish pallor had overspread his face, but there was a smile under his colourless moustache.

“My principal was touched,” said Casalverde, pointing to a tiny scratch upon Del Ferice’s neck, from which a single drop of blood was slowly oozing.

“Then why did you not prevent your principal from thrusting after you cried the halt?” asked Saracinesca, severely.  “You have singularly misunderstood your duties, sir, and when these gentlemen are satisfied, you will be answerable to me.”

Casalverde was silent.

“I protest myself wholly satisfied,” said Ugo, with a disagreeable smile, as he glanced to where the surgeon was binding up Giovanni’s arm.

“Sir,” said old Saracinesca, fiercely addressing the second, “I am not here to bandy words with your principal.  He may express himself satisfied through you, if he pleases.  My principal, through me, expresses his entire dissatisfaction.”

“Your principal, Prince,” answered Casalverde, coldly, “is unable to proceed, seeing that his right arm is injured.”

“My son, sir, fences as readily with his left hand as with his right,” returned old Saracinesca.

Del Ferice’s face fell, and his smile vanished instantly.

“In that case we are ready,” returned Casalverde, unable, however, to conceal his annoyance.  He was a friend of Del Ferice’s and would gladly have seen Giovanni run through the body by the foul thrust.

There was a moment’s consultation on the other side.

“I will give myself the pleasure of killing that gentleman to-morrow morning,” remarked Spicca, as he mournfully watched the surgeon’s operations.

“Unless I kill him myself to-day,” returned the Prince savagely, in his white beard.  “Are you ready, Giovanni?” It never occurred to him to ask his son if he was too badly hurt to proceed.

Giovanni never spoke, but the hot blood had mounted to his temples, and he was dangerously angry.  He took the foil they gave him, and felt the point quietly.  It was sharp as a needle.  He nodded to his father’s question, and they resumed their places, the old Prince this time standing on the left, as his son had changed hands.  Del Ferice came forward rather timidly.  His courage had sustained him so far, but the consciousness of having done a foul deed, and the sight of the angry man before him, were beginning to make him nervous.  He felt uncomfortable, too, at the idea of fencing against a left-handed antagonist.

Giovanni made one or two lunges, and then, with a strange movement unlike anything any one present was acquainted with, seemed to wind his blade round Del Ferice’s, and, with a violent jerk of the wrist, sent the weapon flying across the open space.  It struck a window of the house, and crashed through the panes.

“More broken glass!” said Giovanni scornfully, as he lowered his point and stepped back two paces.  “Take another sword, sir,” he said; “I will not kill you defenceless.”