you told me, Blanche, that this man would not return to-night and
that therefore we were safe together, you lied. Well, my Lady Blanche,
you shall pay for this trick later."

Whilst he spoke thus, slowly, as though to gain time, he was looking
about him, and as the last word left his lips, knowing that the door was
locked, he dashed for the window, hoping, I suppose, to leap through the
casement, or if that failed, to shout for help. But Kari, who had set
the candles he bore on a side table, that where the writing lay, read
his mind. With a movement more swift than that of a polecat leaping on
its prey, the swiftest indeed that ever I saw, he sprang between him and
the casement, so that Deleroy scarce escaped pinning himself upon the
steel that he held in his long, outstretched arm. Indeed, I think it
pricked his throat, for he checked himself with an oath and drew
his sword, a double-edged weapon with a sharp point, as long as mine
perhaps, but not so heavy.

"I see that I must finish the pair of you. Perchance, Blanche, you will
protect my back as a loving wife should do, until this lout is done
with," he said, swaggering to the last.

"Kari," I commanded, "hold the candles aloft that the light may be good,
and leave this man to me."

Kari bowed and took the copper taper stands, one in either hand, and
held them aloft. But first he placed his long dagger, not back in his
belt, but between his teeth with the handle towards his right hand. Even
then in some strange fashion I noted how terrible looked this grim dark
man holding the candles high with the knife gripped between his white
teeth.

Deleroy and I faced each other in the open space between the fire and
the door. Blanche turned round upon her stool and watched, uttering no
sound. But I laughed aloud for of the end I had no doubt. Had there been
ten Deleroys I would have slain them all. Still presently I found there
was cause to doubt, for when, parrying his first thrust, I drove at him
with all my strength, instead of piercing him through and through the
ancient sword, Wave-Flame, bent in my hand like a bow as it is strung,
telling me that beneath his Joseph's coat of silk Deleroy wore a shirt
of mail.

Then I cried: "_A-hoi!_" as Thorgrimmer my ancestor may have done when
he wielded this same sword, and while Deleroy still staggered beneath
my thrust I grasped Wave-Flame with both hands, wheeled it aloft, and
smote. He lifted his arm round which he had wo