CHAPTER IX


For many minutes the fight raged furiously round the pole, and the
earth shook beneath the iron boots of Friesshardt and Leuthold as they
rushed about, striking out right and left with their fists and the
flats of their pikes. Seppi the cowboy (an ancestor, by the way, of
Buffalo Bill) went down before a tremendous blow by Friesshardt, and
Leuthold knocked Klaus von der Flue head over heels.

"What you _want_" said Arnold of Sewa, who had seen the beginning
of the fight from the window of his cottage and had hurried to join it,
and, as usual, to give advice to everybody--"what you want here is
guile. That's what you want--guile, cunning. Not brute force, mind you.
It's no good rushing at a man in armour and hitting him. He only hits
you back. You should employ guile. Thus. Observe."

He had said these words standing on the outskirts of the crowd. He now
grasped his cudgel and began to steal slowly towards Friesshardt, who
had just given Werni the huntsman such a hit with his pike that the
sound of it was still echoing in the mountains, and was now busily
engaged in disposing of Jost Weiler. Arnold of Sewa crept stealthily
behind him, and was just about to bring his cudgel down on his head,
when Leuthold, catching sight of him, saved his comrade by driving his
pike with all his force into Arnold's side. Arnold said afterwards that
it completely took his breath away. He rolled over, and after being
trodden on by everybody for some minutes, got up and limped back to his
cottage, where he went straight to bed, and did not get up for two
days.