Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/250

 La Mancha to the combat. This ludicrous idea made me suspect a fraud. I had also perceived on entering the apartment, that another figure made its way through a side door, which formed a communication with the apartments of the marchioness, and terminated in the garden. At the same time I perceived that a gold repeater, which used to stand on the chimney in a case, was missing, though it had been there when I was in the room in the beginning of the evening.

Seizing, therefore, the wavering marquis by the arm, "By G—d," cried I, "they are nothing but thieves!" He coincided with me, and both of us made several passes at the figure with our swords, which it skilfully parried with a long staff. A servant with a torch having by this time come in, and the gentleman who left us in the beginning observed that the torch, which I still held in my left hand was useless, and threw it flaring in the face of my antagonist. This broke one of his large glass eyes, and otherwise deranged his head-dress. I no sooner saw this, than I also flung down my sword, laid hold of his