eless horrors a pleasurable
expectation as of spectators in a playhouse awaiting the entrance of the
players.

"There is really no good reason why we should gratify your whim," said
Paradise, still amused. "But it will serve to pass the time. We will
fight you, one by one."

"And if I win?"

He laughed. "Then, on the honor of a gentleman, you are Kirby and our
captain. If you lose, we will leave you where you stand for the gulls to
bury."

"A bargain," I said, and drew my sword.

"I first!" roared Red Gil. "God's wounds! there will need no second!"

As he spoke he swung his cutlass and made an arc of blue flame. The
weapon became in his hands a flail, terrible to look upon, making
lightnings and whistling in the air, but in reality not so deadly as it
seemed. The fury of his onslaught would have beaten down the guard of
any mere swordsman, but that I was not. A man, knowing his weakness and
insufficiency in many and many a thing, may yet know his strength in one
or two and his modesty take no hurt. I was ever master of my sword, and
it did the thing I would have it do. Moreover, as I fought I saw her as
I had last seen her, standing against the bank of sand, her dark hair,
half braided, drawn over her bosom and hanging to her knees. Her
eyes haunted me, and my lips yet felt the touch of her hand. I fought
well,--how well the lapsing of oaths and laughter into breathless
silence bore witness.

The ruffian against whom I was pitted began to draw his breath in gasps.
He was a scoundrel not fit to die, less fit to live, unworthy of
a gentleman's steel. I presently ran him through with as little
compunction and as great a desire to be quit of a dirty job as if he had
been a mad dog. He fell, and a little later, while I was engaged with
the Spaniard, his soul went to that hell which had long gaped for it.
To those his companions his death was as slight a thing as would theirs
have been to him. In the eyes of the two remaining would-be leaders
he was a stumbling-block removed, and to the squatting, open-mouthed
commonality his taking off weighed not a feather against the solid
entertainment I was affording them. I was now a better man than Red
Gil,--that was all.

The Spaniard was a more formidable antagonist. The best blade of Lima
was by no means to be despised; but Lima is a small place, and its
blades can be numbered. The sword that for three years had been counted
the best in all the Low Countries was its bette