Ober-hauptmann Muller was reckoned to be the finest player at the small-sword in the Kaiser's army, and could for a wager snick any button from an opponent's vest without cutting the cloth.

Yet was he slain in an encounter with Fahnfuhrer Zollner, who was a cornet in our own Pandour corps, and who knew as much of the rapier as you do of horsemanship.

For the rapier, be it understood, is designed to thrust and not to cut, so that no man wielding it ever thinks of guarding a side-stroke.

But Zollner, being a long-armed man, smote his antagonist across the face with his weapon as though it had been a cane, and then, ere he had time to recover himself, fairly pinked him.
Doubtless if the matter were to do again, the Oberhauptmann would have got his thrust in sooner, but as it was, no explanation or excuse could get over the fact that the man was dead.' 'If want of knowledge maketh a dangerous swordsman,' quoth Reuben, 'then am I even more deadly than the unpronounceable gentleman whom you have mentioned.

To continue my story, however, which I broke off in order to step down from my horse, I found out early in the morning that ye were gone, and Zachary Palmer was able to tell me whither.