the instant after, when he saw MacIan apparently standing ready.
Yet MacIan was not exactly ready. He stood staring like a man
stricken with a trance.

"What are you staring at?" asked Turnbull. "Do you see the
bobbies?"

"I see Jerusalem," said Evan, "all covered with the shields and
standards of the Saracens."

"Jerusalem!" said Turnbull, laughing. "Well, we've taken the only
inhabitant into captivity."

And he picked up his sword and made it whistle like a boy's wand.

"I beg your pardon," said MacIan, dryly. "Let us begin."

MacIan made a military salute with his weapon, which Turnbull
copied or parodied with an impatient contempt; and in the
stillness of the garden the swords came together with a clear
sound like a bell. The instant the blades touched, each felt them
tingle to their very points with a personal vitality, as if they
were two naked nerves of steel. Evan had worn throughout an air
of apathy, which might have been the stale apathy of one who
wants nothing. But it was indeed the more dreadful apathy of one
who wants something and will care for nothing else. And this was
seen suddenly; for the instant Evan engaged he disengaged and
lunged with an infernal violence. His opponent with a desperate
promptitude parried and riposted; the parry only just succeeded,
the riposte failed. Something big and unbearable seemed to have