I looked my antagonist carefully over, deciding several minor points in my mind, and then at a favorable moment stepped quietly within striking distance, and delivered a sharp blow with my stick on his left instep, as far forward as I could without hitting the stirrup.  The man seemed to be in a sort of military trance, for he never winced.  Quick as thought, I repeated the blow, and this time the fellow fairly yelled with rage, astonishment and pain.  I have since made up my mind that his nerve-fibre must have been of that inert sort which transmits waves of sensation but slowly, so that the perception of the first blow reached the interior of his helmet just about as the second descended.  At all events, he jerked back his foot, and somehow, between the involuntary contraction of his flexor muscles from pain and the glancing of my stick, his foot slipped from the stirrup.  This, as I had learned from my instructor, was a great point gained, and in an instant I had him by the ankle and by the top of his jack-boot, doubling his leg, at the same time heaving mightily upward.

As I gave my whole strength to the effort I was dimly aware of screams and panic among the nursery—­maids and children who were but a moment before my fellow-spectators.  At the same time I caught the flash of the Guardsman’s sabre as he cut down at me after the fashion prescribed in the broadsword exercise.  Fortune, however, did not desert me.  My antagonist had not enough elbow-room, and his sword-point was shivered against the stone arch overhead, the blade descending flatways and harmlessly upon my well-protected shoulder just as, with a final effort, I tumbled him out his saddle.

The recollection of the ludicrous figure which that Guardsman cut haunts me still.  His pipeclayed gloves clutched wildly at holster and cantle as he went over.  Down came the gleaming helmet crashing upon the pavement, and with a calamitous rattle and bang the whole complicated structure of corselet, scabbard, carbine, cross-belts, spurs and boots went into the inside corner of the archway, a helpless heap.

That started the horse.  The noble animal had stood my assault as steadily as if he had been cast in bronze, but precisely such an emergency as this had never been contemplated in his training, as it had not in that of his master, and he now started forward rather wildly.  I had my hand on the bridle before he had moved a foot, and swung myself half over his back as he dashed across the sidewalk and up Whitehall.  The Guards’ saddles are very easy when once you are in them, and I had reason, temporarily at least, to approve the English style of riding with short stirrups, for I readily found my seat, and ascertained that I could touch bottom with my toes.  As I left the scene of my victory behind me I heard the guards turning out, and caught a glimpse as of all London running in my direction, but by the time that I had secured the control of my horse I had distanced the crowd, and as we entered