end even without me."

The musician listened with surprise to the softened tone of the strange
man's voice, but the young nobleman raised his drinking-cup, exclaiming:

"Such heavy thoughts for a light glass! You make too much of the matter,
Captain. Take your bumper again, and pledge me: Long live the noble art
of fencing, and your series: quarte, tierce and side-thrust!"

"They'll live," replied Allertssohn, "ay, they'll live. Many hundreds of
noble gentlemen use the sword in this country, and the man who sits here
has taught them to wield it according to the rules. My series has served
many in duelling, and I, Andreas, their master, have made tierce follow
quarte and side-thrust tierce thousands of times, but always with buttons
on the foils and against padded doublets. Outside the walls, in the
battle-field, no one, often as I have pressed upon the leaders, has ever
stood against me in single combat. This Brescian sword-blade has more
than once pierced a Spanish jerkin, but the art I teach, gentlemen, the
art I love, to which my life has been devoted, I have never practised in
earnest. That is hard to bear, gentlemen, and if Heaven is disposed,
before calling him away from earth, to grant a poor man, who is no worse
than his neighbors, one favor, I shall be permitted to cross blades once
in a true, genuine duel, and try my series against an able champion in a
mortal struggle. If God would grant Andreas this--"

Before the fencing-master had finished the last sentence, an armed man
dashed the door open, shouting: "The light is raised at Leyderdorp!"

At these words Allertssohn sprang from his chair as nimbly as a youth,
drew himself up to his full height, adjusted his shoulder-belt and drew