"All right."
Chumley wetted his lips, straightened his shoulders.
"My principal," he announced in a fairly steady voice, "is ready."
Then he quit the field, and Johnston's second likewdse quit the field. This left, besides Adam and Johnston, only the referee, a tall man Adam did not know, who carried the long heavy cavalry saber and wore the leather arm guard. Adam paid not the slightest attention to the person of the referee, though he did hear his voice as he called out the few and simple rules for this meeting. Adam was gazing at Sir Jervis Johnston, who, dignified if stern, was gazing at him.
They stood about twenty feet apart.
The baronet was stripped of his finery. Like Adam, he was bareheaded. He wore gray stockings, dun-colored breeches, a dun-colored shirt. Nothing about him glittered now, who was by ordinary such a resplendent figure. There was nothing, that is, to catch and guide the eye. There were no buckles on his heelless shoes. No rings flashed on his fingers, no brooch at his throat.
This was as it should be. Sir Jervis Johnston might be the best swordsman in London, as some said, but there was no reason for him to take unnecessary chances.
The referee waved the saber and called out something about the spectators keeping back. Then he left the field.
"Gentlemen, advance and engage at will!"
Adam went right in. He had planned this. For one thing, he was nervous and he didn't fancy the audience: the less fencing, the sooner the fight was over, the better. More important, an immediate, uncomplicated attack would be the most unexpected move he could make. Johnston, with his reputation, would look for a timorous approach. If he was attacked at all, he'd reason, it would be only after a considerable feeling-out period, and certainly the move would be preceded by at least a simple cavazione, whether inside or out, or a mezza cavazione, or some manner of disengagement or counter.
So Adam, without making any attempt to meet Johnston's steel, without trying any pass whatever, swept into a lunge.
A gasp rose from the crowd.
Johnston parried. Without retreating—he didn't get a chance to retreat —he flicked his hand, an instinctive movement. Adam felt no resistance to his blade, but the point had been deflected. Though the lower half of the sword was out of sight, he didn't think he'd hit flesh.
The quillons clanged together. The two men, their faces close in that instant, Adam's being the lower, regarded one another gravely. Johnston was impassive, but in his clear blue eyes Adam Long read respect, even admiration. It had been a near thing.
Neither dared to move.
The referee's saber came between them.
"Disengage, gentlemen. No cut or thrust till the signal's given againl"
They stepped back into guard position, Adam's sword emerging from Johnston's shirt. Johnston stood easy, not swaying. There was no sign of blood. The surgeon hurried to him, while the referee took the center of the field. After a moment the surgeon stepped back.
"He's not touched."
The referee lowered his saber.
"Advance and engage at will!"
Again Adam attacked. But his chance had gone. He would never get near Jervis Johnston now.
Johnston retreated when it pleased him—when he sought to calculate Adam's reach, for example—but he never was flustered. He parried easily and almost absently. There was no excessive motion. Adam could scarcely feel the man's blade.
It can be a dreadful thing not to be able to feel the other's steel. It can induce panic. Adam began to get rigid, and he was gripping his sword too hard.
Johnston stopped retreating. He had learned all he thought he needed to know. He was neither cutting this fight short, as he might easily have done, nor permitting it to drag unnecessarily. His movements were sweet and sure, but spare, not flashy. Not once had he made any riposte. His blade had always been in line, excepting when he parried Adam's first attack, and its point had constantly threatened Adam's face; but Johnston had not thrust, or even feinted.
Now he nodded. He did not gloat, for he was concentrating; but when he nodded, probably not knowing that he did so, it was as though he had said aloud: "Very well, now we'll go the other way." And he attacked.
Not catching the blade, Adam retreated. He retreated again, as Johnston, stepping with tiny catlike steps, advanced. Johnston didn't hurry, he didn't beat.
Adam made a wild wide counter, sweeping his point far out of line. He caught nothing.
Johnston came on in.
Never in his lonely life had Adam Long felt so alone, so frustrated. He had no chance, and now he knew it. He had stepped far out of his class. There was no such thing as beginner's luck in rapier play, and men like Jervis Johnston did not stumble or make mistakes.
Carse of Providence at his most brilliant wouldn't have been able to hold off his master, who coldly and exactly advanced.
Adam might just as well have thrown his sword away, for all the good it was doing him.
Well, he thought, this is it.
He retreated.
JSloxv, he thought, I'm going to die.
He stood; for it occurred to him that he might better get killed while going forward than while going back.
He held in a sob so violent that it shook his chest. He attacked.
"Disengage!"
The referee's saber was between them, then the referee himself was. The surgeon came padding over.
The outside of Adam's right forearm showed a thin red line about six inches long, which presently began to fill with blood. The blood broke, some tumbling to one side, some to the other. There wasn't a great deal of it.
Adam stared at it, dumbfounded. He felt nothing there.
The surgeon started to swab it and to squeeze the edges.
"Tut, tut, man. Not deep, and it's clean. You're lucky."
He was lucky indeed. He looked across at Sir Jervis Johnston, who stood with lowered guard, his face grave, eyes attentive and polite. There was the man Adam had almost killed, a minute ago. There was the man who could have killed Adam half a dozen times over, during that minute. This touch was enough to end the fight, since it drew blood. It had been the lightest possible hit in the safest possible place.
Adam shook his head.
"That cut's nothing! I'm not satisfied!"
"Please address your remarks to the field only through your representative," the referee said sternly.
"Can't do that," somebody called. "Poor Chum's damn' well swooned, b'God!"
"I repeat," said the referee, "I declare this combat ended."
Johnston passed his sword to his second. He went to Adam, hand out. Adam did not hesitate. He dropped his sword.
They shook hands.
"Damn it. Captain, that was fine fencing! Thank you, sir, thank you! Had me frighted half to death for a while there!"
"Nothing to what you had we, sir!"
Johnston laughed. Everybody laughed, excepting Adam Long. The surgeon was bandaging his arm.
"Our, uh, our little disagreement, Captain— It was about a waistcoat, if I recall correctly?"
"No, sir, it was about a woman," Adam said. "But it's all right now, far as I'm concerned. I guess I don't want to fight you any more."
In the Brown Tun, in the first confusion, before they'd found their places and the wine had been poured, a nondescript man sidled up to Adam and touched his elbow.
"You are Captain Long of the Rhode Island colony?"
"That's right. Why?"
The man handed him a paper, which Adam accepted without stopping to think. It was a legal paper, crickly with seals. Adam supposed it to be some legal formality in connection with the duel, which after all, as John Chumley had pointed out, was against the law. The nondescript had vanished. Adam thrust the paper into a pocket.