The steel jangled. The girl's pale face was at the crevice of the
hinge. She heard the blades cross again and again. Then one would
run up the other with a sharp, grating slither. At times she
caught a glimpse of a figure in quick forward lunge or rapid wary
withdrawal. Her brain was almost paralyzed.
Ignorant of the mind and heart of young Rupert, she could not
conceive that he tried to kill the king. Yet the words she had
caught sounded like the words of men quarreling, and she could
not persuade herself that the gentlemen fenced only for pastime.
They were not speaking now; but she heard their hard breathing
and the movement of their unresting feet on the bare boards of
the floor. Then a cry rang out, clear and merry with the fierce
hope of triumph: "Nearly! nearly!"
She knew the voice for Rupert of Hentzau's, and it was the king
who answered calmly, "Nearly isn't quite."
Again she listened. They seemed to have paused for a moment, for
there was no sound, save of the hard breathing and deep-drawn
pants of men who rest an instant in the midst of intense
exertion. Then came again the clash and the slitherings; and one
of them crossed into her view. She knew the tall figure and she
saw the red hair: it was the king.
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