e
could not lay aside the little flourish--the quick, stiff pose--of the
fencer.

His sword made a dozen turns in the air, and the point of it came down
lightly, like a butterfly, on the man's shoulder. He lowered it further,
as if seeking a particular spot, and then, deliberately, he pushed it in
as if into a cheese.

"Voila, mon ami," he said, with a sort of condescension as if he had
made him a present. As, indeed, he had. He had given him his life.

The man leaped back with a little yelp of pain, and his knife clattered
on the stones. He stood in the moonlight, looking with horror-struck
eyes at his own hand, of which the fingers, like tendrils, were slowly
curling up, and he had no control over them.

"And now," said Deulin, in Polish, "for you."

He turned to the other, who had been moving surreptitiously round
towards Cartoner, who had, indeed, come out to meet him; but the man
turned and ran, followed closely by his companion.

Deulin picked up the knife, which lay gleaming on the cobble-stones,
and came towards Cartoner with it. Then he turned aside, and carefully
dropped it between the bars of the street gutter, where it fell with a
muddy splash.

"He will never use that hand again," he said. "Poor devil! I only hope
he was well paid for it."

"Doubt it."

Deulin was feeling in the pocket of his top-coat.

"Have you an old envelope?" he inquired.

Cartoner handed him what he asked for. It happened to be the envelope of
the letter he had received a few days earlier, denying him his recall.
And Deulin carefully wiped the blade of the sword-stick with it. He tore
it into pieces and sent it after the knife. Then he polished the bright
steel with his pocket-handkerchief, from the evil point to the hilt,
where the government mark and the word "Toledo" were deeply engraved.

"Unless I keep it clean it sticks," he explained. "And if you want it at
all, you want it in a hurry--like a woman's heart, eh?"

He was looking up and down the street as he spoke, and shot the blade
back into its sheath. He turned and examined the ground to make sure
that nothing was left there.

"The light was good," he said, appreciatively, "and the ground favorable
for--for the autumn manoeuvres."

And he broke into a gay laugh.

"Come," he said. "Let us go back into the more frequented streets.
This back way was not a success--only proves that it never does to turn
tail."

"How did you know," asked Cartoner, "that this