thing new to any of us. The footing was good, as promised. There was
no dew. The moon shone fair, and Fortini's blade and mine were out and
at earnest play.

This I knew: good swordsman as they reckoned me in France, Fortini was a
better. This, too, I knew: that I carried my lady's heart with me this
night, and that this night, because of me, there would be one Italian
less in the world. I say I knew it. In my mind the issue could not be
in doubt. And as our rapiers played I pondered the manner I should kill
him. I was not minded for a long contest. Quick and brilliant had
always been my way. And further, what of my past gay months of carousal
and of singing "Sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu," at ungodly hours, I
knew I was not conditioned for a long contest. Quick and brilliant was
my decision.

But quick and brilliant was a difficult matter with so consummate a
swordsman as Fortini opposed to me. Besides, as luck would have it,
Fortini, always the cold one, always the tireless-wristed, always sure
and long, as report had it, in going about such business, on this night
elected, too, the quick and brilliant.

It was nervous, tingling work, for as surely as I sensed his intention of
briefness, just as surely had he sensed mine. I doubt that I could have
done the trick had it been broad day instead of moonlight. The dim light
aided me. Also was I aided by divining, the moment in advance, what he
had in mind. It was the time attack, a common but perilous trick that
every novice knows, that has laid on his back many a good man who
attempted it, and that is so fraught with danger to the perpetrator that
swordsmen are not enamoured of it.

We had been at work barely a minute, when I knew under all his darting,
flashing show of offence that Fortini meditated this very time attack. He
desired of me a thrust and lunge, not that he might parry it but that he
might time it and deflect it by the customary slight turn of the wrist,
his rapier point directed to meet me as my body followed in the lunge. A
ticklish thing--ay, a ticklish thing in the best of light. Did he
deflect a fraction of a second too early, I should be warned and saved.
Did he deflect a fraction of a second too late, my thrust would go home
to him.

"Quick and brilliant is it?" was my thought. "Very well, my Italian
friend, quick and brilliant shall it be, and especially shall it be
quick."

In a way, it was time attack against time attac