advanced towards him with the weapons extended. Suddenly he paused.

"Stop!" he said. "Let us make a wager on our game. I always play with
more heart so. Here is my stake."

He began to fumble at his doublet, and presently produced from an
inner pocket a great thumb-ring with a ruby in it.

"I gained that," he said, "at the sacking of a Spanish town. 'Tis
worth a pope's ransom. Set what you please against it."

Evander lifted the ring from the table where Halfman placed it and
took it to the window to look at it closely. Presently he laid it on
the table again.

"It is a goodly ring," he observed. "The setting is old and curious,
and the stone, though it has a slight flaw in it, as you have been
doubtless told before now, is worth more than any poor possessions I
have about my person. Wherefore I would rather we contended for
love."

Halfman shook his head. He was a thought dashed by Evander's
discovery of the blemish in the stone, and he carried off his
discomfiture by bravado.

"Nay, nay," he answered; "there is my stake. Set what you please
against it, were it no more than a silver groat. I do not ask to be
paid well for my lesson."

Evander said nothing, but drew his purse from his pocket and laid it
on the table. Through the meshes Halfman could see the gleam of a few
pieces of gold, and the gleam cheered him, as it always did. He was
ever greedy of gold, and thought the death of Crassus not unkingly.

"Choose your blade," he said. Evander, with a quick glance at the two
weapons, selected the one nearest to him, flung his hat onto a chair,
stripped off his doublet, and quietly waited for his adversary.
Halfman did not keep him long. He flung his hat and doublet on the
floor and advanced.

"Are you ready?" he asked. Evander saluted in silence, and in another
moment the antagonists engaged and the mock duello began. Halfman
expected that it would be short, but it proved much shorter than he
expected. He was far too good a swordsman not to know when he had
encountered a better. The thing had not happened to him very often;
it happened very flagrantly now. In less than five minutes Evander
had placed the muffled button of his blade three times on Halfman's
person--once upon either breast, and the third time fair on the
forehead, just between the eyes. The last blow was so surely
delivered that had it been given with greater force it might have
knocked the receiver senseless. As it was, however, it was give