In a moment the swords met.  Colonel Campbell at once attacked furiously, trying to beat down Harry’s guard by sheer strength and the weight of his weapon.  The Englishman, however, was to the full as powerful a man, and his muscles from long usage were like cords of steel.  His blade met the sweeping blows of the Scotchman firmly and steadily, while his point over and over again menaced the breast of his adversary, who several times only saved himself by springing back beyond it.  Harry’s seconds saw from the first that the issue was not doubtful.  In a contest between the edge and the point, the latter always wins if strength and skill be equal, and in this case, while in point of strength the combatants were fairly matched, Harry was more skilled in the use of his weapon, whose lightness, combined with its strength, added to his advantage.  The fight lasted but five minutes.  Twice Harry’s sword drew blood, and at the third thrust he ran his adversary through under the shoulder.  The latter dropped his sword, with a curse.

“I have spared your life, Colonel Campbell,” Harry said.  “It was at my mercy a dozed times, but I wished not to kill you.  You forced this quarrel upon me at the bidding of another, and against you I had no animosity.  Farewell, sir.  I trust that ere the day of battle you will be able to use your sword again in the service of the king.”

So saying, Harry resumed his doublet and cloak, and, accompanied by his seconds, returned to his camp, leaving Campbell, furious with pain and disappointment, to be conveyed home by his friends.

“So far, so good, Harry,” Captain Leslie said.  “The attempt will, you will find, be a more serious one.  Argyll will not try fair means again.  But beware how you go out at night.”

The duel made a good deal of talk, and Argyll attempted to induce the king to take the matter up, and to punish Harry for his share in it.  But the young king, although obliged to listen every day to the long sermons and admonitions of the Covenanters, was heartily sick of them already and answered Argyll lightly that, so far as he had heard of the circumstances, Colonel Campbell was wholly to blame.  “And, indeed,” added the king, “from what I have heard, the conduct of your kinsman was so wantonly insulting that men say he must have been provoked thereto by others, as the two officers appear to have been strangers until the moment when their quarrel arose.”

The earl grew paler than usual, and pressed his thin lips tightly together.

“I know of no reason,” he said, “why Colonel Campbell should have engaged wantonly in a quarrel with this English officer.”

“No!” Charles said innocently.  “And if you do not, my lord, I know of no one that does.  Colonel Furness is an officer who is somewhat staid and severe for his years, and who, in sooth, stands somewhat aloof from me, and cares not for the merry jests of Buckingham; but he is a gallant soldier.  He has risked his life over and over again in the cause of my sainted father, and tried his utmost to save him, both at Carisbrook and Whitehall.  Any one who plots against him is no friend of mine.”  The young king spoke with a dignity and sternness which were not common to him, and Argyll, biting his lips, felt a deadlier enmity than ever toward the man who had brought this reproof upon his shoulders.