We wheeled and came on again, and yet again, and each time he put me on defense, and each time I learned more of what was before me to do.  My old servant, Satan, was now his servant, and the great black horse was savage against me as was his rider.  Wishing nothing so much as to kill his own rival, he came each time with his ears back and his mouth open, wicked in the old blood lust that I knew.  It was the fury of his horse that saved me, I suppose, for as that mad beast bored in, striving to overthrow my own horse, the latter would flinch away in spite of all I could do, so that I needed to give him small attention when we met in these short, desperate charges.  I escaped with nothing more than a rip across the shoulder, a touch on the cheek, on the arm, where his point reached me lightly, as my horse swerved away from the encounters.  I could not reach Orme at all.

At last, I know not how, we clashed front on, and his horse bore mine back, with a scream fastening his teeth in the crest of my mount, as a dog seizes his prey.  I saw Orme’s sword turn lightly, easily again around his head, saw his wrist turn gently, smoothly down and extend in a cut which was aimed to catch me full across the head.  There was no parry I could think, but the full counter in kind.  My blade met his with a shock that jarred my arm to the shoulder.

I saw him give back, pull off his mad horse and look at his hand, where his own sword was broken off, a foot above the hilt.  Smiling, he saluted with it, reigning back his horse, and no more afraid of me than if I were a child.  He did not speak, nor did I. I pulled up my own horse, not wishing to take the advantage that now was mine, but knowing that he would not yield—­that I must kill him.

He did so at his own peril who took Orme for a dullard.  I watched him closely.  He saluted again with his broken sword, and made as though to toss it from him, as indeed he did.  Then like a flash his hand dropped to his holster.

I read his thought, I presume, when he made his second salute.  His motion of tossing away the sword hilt gave me the fraction of time which sometimes is the difference between life and death.  Our fire was almost at the same instant, but not quite.  His bullet cut the epaulet clean from my left shoulder; but he did not fire again, nor did I. I saw him straighten up in his saddle, precisely as I had once seen an Indian chieftain do under Orme’s own fire.  He looked at me with a startled expression on his face.

At that moment there came from the edge of the woods the crack of a musket.  The great horse Satan pitched his head forward and dropped limp, sinking to his knees.  As he rolled he caught his rider under him.  I myself sprung down, shouting out some command toward the edge of the wood, that they should leave this man to me.

Whether my men heard me or not I do not know.  Perhaps they heard rather the hoarse shouts of a fresh column in gray which came up in the pursuit, fagged with its own running.  When these new men passed me all they saw was a bit of wood torn with shot and ball, and in the open two figures, both dusty and gray, one helping the other from what seemed to be a fall of his horse.  Scenes like that were common.  We were not disturbed by the men of either side.  We were alone presently, Gordon Orme and I.