while their swords clashed and darted.  The stamp of their feet sounded dull and heavy on the moor, and John Oxon’s breath came short and hissing.  As he grew more wild the other grew more cool and steady, and made a play which Sir John could have shrieked out at seeing.  What was the man doing?  ’Twas as if he would show him where he could strike and did not deign to.  He felt his devil’s touch in a dozen places, and not one scratch.  There he might have laid open his face from brow to chin!  Why did he touch him here, there, at one point and another, and deal no wound?  Gods! ’twas fighting not with a human thing but with a devil!  ’Twas like fighting in a Roman arena, to be played with as a sport until human strength could bear no more; ’twas as men used to fight together hundreds of years ago.  His breath grew short, his panting fiercer, the sweat poured down him, his throat was dry, and he could feel no more the fresh stirring of the air of the dawning.  He would not stop to breathe, he had reached the point in his insensate fury when he could have flung himself upon the rapier’s point and felt it cleave his breastbone and start through his back with the joy of hell, if he could have struck the other man deep but once.  The thought made him start afresh; he fought like a thousand devils, his point leaping and flashing, and coming down with a crash; he stamped and gasped and shouted.

“Curse you,” he cried; “come on!”

“Do I stand back?” said my lord Duke, and gave him such play as made him see the air red as blood, and think he tasted the salt of blood in his dry mouth; his muscles were wrenched with his violence, and this giant devil moved as swift as if he had but just begun.  Good God! he was beaten!  Good God! by this enemy who would not kill him or be killed.  He uttered a sound which was a choking shriek and hurled himself forward.  ’Twas his last stroke and he knew it, and my lord Duke struck his point aside and it flew in the air, and Sir John fell backwards broken, conquered, exhausted, but an unwounded man.  And he fell full length and lay upon the heather, its purple blooms crushed against his cheek; and the sky was of a sweet pallor just about to glow, and the first bird of morning sprang up in it to sing.

“Damn you!” he gasped.  “Damn you,” and lay there, his blue eyes glaring, his chest heaving as though ’twould burst, his nostrils dilated with his laboured, tortured puffs of breath.  Thereupon, as he lay prostrate, for he was too undone a man to rise, he saw in his Grace of Osmonde’s eyes the two points of light which were like ruthless flames and yet burned so still.

And his Grace, standing near him, leaned upon his sword, looking down.

“Do you understand?” he said.

“That you are the better sword—­Yes!” shrieked Sir John, and added curses it were useless to repeat.

“That I will have you refrain from speaking that lady’s name?”

“Force me to it, if you can,” Sir John raved at him.  “You can but kill me!”