Whilst he spoke thus, slowly, as though to gain time, he was looking about him, and as the last word left his lips, knowing that the door was locked, he dashed for the window, hoping, I suppose, to leap through the casement, or if that failed, to shout for help.  But Kari, who had set the candles he bore on a side table, that where the writing lay, read his mind.  With a movement more swift than that of a polecat leaping on its prey, the swiftest indeed that ever I saw, he sprang between him and the casement, so that Deleroy scarce escaped pinning himself upon the steel that he held in his long, outstretched arm.  Indeed, I think it pricked his throat, for he checked himself with an oath and drew his sword, a double-edged weapon with a sharp point, as long as mine perhaps, but not so heavy.

“I see that I must finish the pair of you.  Perchance, Blanche, you will protect my back as a loving wife should do, until this lout is done with,” he said, swaggering to the last.

“Kari,” I commanded, “hold the candles aloft that the light may be good, and leave this man to me.”

Kari bowed and took the copper taper stands, one in either hand, and held them aloft.  But first he placed his long dagger, not back in his belt, but between his teeth with the handle towards his right hand.  Even then in some strange fashion I noted how terrible looked this grim dark man holding the candles high with the knife gripped between his white teeth.

Deleroy and I faced each other in the open space between the fire and the door.  Blanche turned round upon her stool and watched, uttering no sound.  But I laughed aloud for of the end I had no doubt.  Had there been ten Deleroys I would have slain them all.  Still presently I found there was cause to doubt, for when, parrying his first thrust, I drove at him with all my strength, instead of piercing him through and through the ancient sword, Wave-Flame, bent in my hand like a bow as it is strung, telling me that beneath his Joseph’s coat of silk Deleroy wore a shirt of mail.

Then I cried:  “A-hoi!” as Thorgrimmer my ancestor may have done when he wielded this same sword, and while Deleroy still staggered beneath my thrust I grasped Wave-Flame with both hands, wheeled it aloft, and smote.  He lifted his arm round which he had wound his cloak, to protect his head, but the sword shore through cloak and arm, so that his hand with the glittering rings upon it fell to the floor.

Again I smote for, as both of us knew, this business was to the death, and Deleroy fell down dead, smitten through the brain.

Kari smiled gently, and lifting the cloak, shook it out and threw it over what had been Deleroy.  Then he took my sword and while I watched him idly, cleansed it with rushes from the floor.

Next I heard a sound from the neighbourhood of the fire, and bethinking me of Blanche turned to speak to her, though what I was going to say God knows for I do not.