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 utmost, I ran my assailant through the sword arm, inflicting a wound which caused him to drop his sword. I kicked it behind me, and was thus free to devote my whole attention to my other assailant.

I was cleverer with the weapon than he, as I perceived to my intense satisfaction, and was considering where I would wound him and end the fight, when my luck turned. I trod by mischance on the hilt of the sword at my feet, stumbled, and, unable to save myself, fell staggering at full length on the floor.

It was all over, and I gave myself up for lost, when a most unexpected and infinitely welcome interruption came.

A door at the other end of the room, which was hidden by the curtains and tapestries that covered the walls, opened, and I heard a woman's soft clear voice, in which vibrated a note of indignation and anger, exclaim:

"Gentlemen, what is this brawling?"

The others turned at the sound of the voice, and I scrambled to my feet in an instant, gripped my weapon again, and was once more ready against attack; though I stared with all my eyes at the lovely face of the queenly woman who had entered.

"Put up your swords, gentlemen, instantly!" she said; and in obedience the man who still had his weapon sheathed it and fell back abashed behind his superior officer.

Intuitively I recognised the Princess Christina.