Was it luck?
It seemed to Hamilton more than that--a sort of uncanny evasion.

Or was it supreme mastery, the last and subtlest reach of the fencer's craft?
Youth forced age slowly backward in the struggle, which at times took on spurts so furious that the slender blades, becoming mere glints of acicular steel, split the moonlight back and forth, up and down, so that their meetings, following one another in a well-nigh continuous stroke, sent a jarring noise through the air.

Father Beret lost inch by inch, until the fighting was almost over the body of Alice; and now for the first time Hamilton became aware of that motionless something with the white, luminous face in profile against the ground; but he did not let even that unsettle his fencing gaze, which followed the sunken and dusky eyes of his adversary.

A perspiration suddenly flooded his body, however, and began to drip across his face.

His arm was tiring.