Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 16, 1921 — page 49: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

40 up his hilt. A leap back carried him into fighting position and he fell on guard in time to put aside the next lunge of his opponent. ‘ Brave lad! Brave lad!” cried a voice beside him, and he glanced across toward the coachman, who was furiously engaging the man whom he had called Malvern. The latter had every advantage of height and reach, yet the coachman kept him in play without the slightest apparent diffi- culty. Indeed, he seemed to fight with his head turned to watch Samson’s progress; yet his address with his blade was a revela- tion to the young Puritan. . | “Keep Harchester off while I finish the old ’un!” he called again, and even as he spoke he got past the guard of Malvern. The elder man dropped his rapier with a deep curse and sprang back, grasping his right forearm with his other hand. His place was instantly filled by the man called Tom, who had left the women in a huddled group at the farthest end of the gallery; but Tom, though he fought with a headlong vim which gave his attack some venom, was by no means a match for the dangerous grace of the coachman. In the mean time Samson Integrity found himself engaged by a veritable master of fence. It was a man of about his own stature—a fellow with proudly curved mus- tache and one of those dainty little tufts of beard in the center of the lower lip which were affected by the court at Whitehall. There was no éeffeminacy about his arm, however; he put by the sword of Samson with a wrist of steel, and his own attack was both swift and sustained. He fought with the confidence of one who has often faced the naked point and took chances which, to the uninitiated on the field of honor, would have seemed suicidal. But Samson Integrity at first forgot every lesson in fence that he had learned from the cunning foil of his father. There on the floor, writhing in what might be his death agony, lay his first antagonist; and the sight froze the blood at Samson’s heart. Moreover, he was overwhelmed with awe ~ at the thought of facing no less a person than Lord Harchester. For tales of dueling can everywhere through England, and the ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. doings of the fencers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields sounded again in each tap-room. No name was more frequently on the lips of the raconteurs than that of Lord Harchester. That very sword, perhaps, had pierced young Vickers, not three months before. At this point in his troubling reflections, Samson followed a feint’ with both sword and eye, and the inevitable result was that his opponent’s point was the next instant past his guard. He parried, indeed, but it was a close call, and he felt cold steel pierce his jacket and slither down his side. Lord Harchester snarled under his breath as he lunged; and cursed when he stepped back with unreddened blood. That touch changed the complexion of the battle. It had been the very touch of death, so to speak, and afiter it, Samson Integrity thrilled with unspeakable joy to find that his fear was gone. His blood flowed warm again; his heart beat true; the weakness which was unstringing his knees departed. He leaped like a tiger at Harchester. A feint at the body and a thrust at the face which Harchester barely managed to put by gave him the aggressive, and the next lunge of the duelist Samson put by as his father had taught him to do—so that it missed his head by the merest fraction of an inch, and he replied with a counter- thrust which Harchester avoided only by suddenly twisting his body half-way round. It gave Samson a chance to flash a’ glance at the coachman in time to see the latter finish his second man. On half a dozen occasions already the coachman had had the life of Tom at his mercy, and each time he had failed to send home the finish- ing stroke. But now, rising from a low lunge with catlike swiftness, he caught the right arm of his opponent outside his sword elbow and struck the poor fellow squarely along the side of ‘the head with his hilt. Tom went down like a steer under the ax— with a single indrawn breath and no other sound. The coachman turned to young Northam. | ““ Holloa!” he cried. ‘Brave Master Samson! But stand back. Harchester is for my blade. Harchester, you unspeakable villain, remember Vickers!” | Go DOOLK Con