As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a
little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough
matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was
thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted
pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and
stouter than himself.

The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his
hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an
instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before
the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt
what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger.
The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help,
Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!"

In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But
the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else
we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the
benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them.

For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few
seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all.

A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving
to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him
tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted;
he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch
the haft of his knife.