Thus was it that for the first time I made the acquaintance--an
acquaintance held by few men in those days--of those marvellous guards of
Marozzo's devising; Falcone showed me the difference between the mandritto
and the roverso, the false edge and the true, the stramazone and the tondo;
and he left me spellbound by that marvellous guard appropriately called by
Marozzo the iron girdle--a low guard on the level of the waist, which on
the very parry gives an opening for the point, so that in one movement you
may ward and strike.

At last, when I questioned him, he admitted that during their wanderings,
my father, with that recklessness that alternated curiously with his
caution, had ventured into the city of Bologna notwithstanding that it was
a Papal fief, for the sole purpose of studying with Marozzo that Falcone
himself had daily accompanied him, witnessed the lessons, and afterwards
practised with my father, so that he had come to learn most of the secrets
that Marozzo taught.

One day, at last, very timidly, like one who, whilst overconscious of his
utter unworthiness, ventures to crave a boon which he knows himself without
the right to expect, I asked Falcone would he show me something of
Marozzo's art with real weapons.

I had feared a rebuff. I had thought that even old Falcone might laugh at
one predestined to the study of theology, desiring to enter into the
mysteries of sword-craft. But my fears were far indeed from having a
foundation. There was no laughter in the equerry's grey eyes, whilst the
smile upon his lips was a smile of gladness, of eagerness, almost of
thankfulness to see me so set.

And so it came to pass that daily thereafter did we practise for an hour or