An
execrable field for the little matter in hand. They gradually
shifted position. Now it was the Governor, then the priest, who
had advantage as to the light. For some time Father Beret seemed
quite the shiftier and surer fighter, but (was it his age telling
on him?) he lost perceptibly in suppleness. Still Hamilton failed
to touch him. There was a baffling something in the old man's
escape now and again from what ought to have been an inevitable
stroke. Was it luck? It seemed to Hamilton more than that--a sort
of uncanny evasion. Or was it supreme mastery, the last and
subtlest reach of the fencer's craft?
Youth forced age slowly backward in the struggle, which at times
took on spurts so furious that the slender blades, becoming mere
glints of acicular steel, split the moonlight back and forth, up
and down, so that their meetings, following one another in a well-
nigh continuous stroke, sent a jarring noise through the air.
Father Beret lost inch by inch, until the fighting was almost over
the body of Alice; and now for the first time Hamilton became
aware of that motionless something with the white, luminous face
in profile against the ground; but he did not let even that
unsettle his fencing gaze, which followed the sunken and dusky
eyes of his adversary. A perspiration suddenly flooded his body,
however, and began to drip across his face.
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