Twice Syme, parrying, knocked his opponent's point far out of the fighting circle; and the third time his riposte was so rapid, that there was no doubt about the hit this time.

Syme's sword actually bent under the weight of the Marquis's body, which it had pierced.
Syme was as certain that he had stuck his blade into his enemy as a gardener that he has stuck his spade into the ground.

Yet the Marquis sprang back from the stroke without a stagger, and Syme stood staring at his own sword-point like an idiot.

There was no blood on it at all.
There was an instant of rigid silence, and then Syme in his turn fell furiously on the other, filled with a flaming curiosity.

The Marquis was probably, in a general sense, a better fencer than he, as he had surmised at the beginning, but at the moment the Marquis seemed distraught and at a disadvantage.