saw him measure Allen with his eye, and then they engaged a
second time. For a few moments, Allen contented himself with standing on
the defensive, parrying Langlade's savage thrusts with a coolness which
nothing could shake and an art that was consummate. Then he bent to the
attack, and touched his adversary on breast and arm and thigh, his point
reaching its mark with ease and seeming slowness.

"Really, I must go," he said at length. "The bout has done me a world of
good. I trust you will profit by the lesson, Lieutenant Stewart," and he
handed me back my foil, smiled full into my eyes, and walked away.

We both stared after him, until he turned the corner and was out of
sight.

"He's the devil himself," gasped Langlade, as our eyes met. "I have never
felt such a wrist. Did you see how he disarmed me? 'Twas no accident. My
fingers would have broken in an instant more, had I not let go the foil.
Who is he?"

"Lieutenant Allen, of the Forty-Fourth," I answered as carelessly
as I could.

Langlade fell silent a moment.

"I have heard of him," he said at last. "I do not wonder he disarmed me.
'Twas he who met the Comte d'Artois, the finest swordsman in the French
Guards, in a little wood on the border of Holland, one morning, over some
affair of honor. They had agreed that it should be to the death."

"And what was the result?" I questioned, looking out over the camp as
though little interested in the answer.

"Can you doubt?" asked Langlade. "Allen returned to England without a
scratch, and his opponent was carried back to Paris with a sword-thrust
through his heart, and buried beside his royal relatives at Saint
Denis. I pity any man who is called upon to face him. He has need to be
a master."

I nodded gloomily, put up the foils, and returned to my quarters, for I
was in no mood for further exercise that morning. What Allen had meant by
his last remark I could not doubt. The lesson I was to profit by was that
I should stand no chance against him.

CHAPTER XIV

I CHANCE UPON A TRAGEDY

As the first weeks of May passed, we slowly got into shape for the
advance, and I began to realize the magnitude of the task before us. Our
march to Great Meadows the year before, arduous as it had been, was mere
child's play to this, and I did not wonder that on every hand the general
found himself confronting obstacles well-nigh insurmountable. And each
day, as though to cover other defects, the discipline grew mo