With that he fell _en garde_, with his blade straight at the Chancellors throat. Turbo saw the time for words was gone by. They had often fenced together, and he knew, in spite of his lameness, he was the better man. Yet so fiercely did the King's eye fix his, that it was with no sense of ease that he took up his sword from the table at his side, where Dolabella had laid it.
With such fury did Kophetua attack when they were once engaged that Turbo had to give ground fast. Already he was forced against a table, and was barely defending himself with his utmost skill, when the door burst open, and Dolabella, alarmed by the quick clink of steel, rushed in, followed by the gendarme and two files of the Palace Watch. Kophetua retreated immediately, and dropped his point.
"You come most inopportunely," said the King angrily.
"Nay, your majesty," said the General. "Permit me to say most opportunely."
"Yes, most opportunely, with your majesty's pardon," echoed the officer, to whom Dolabella had confided the King's difficulty about the Chancellor's arrest. "I can take his excellency red-handed, and no trial will be necessary now."
It was true. The officer of gendarmes knew his work well, and valued at its true worth his favourite and most dreaded weapon--red-handed justice. He was quick enough to see that here was a solution of the difficulty which his commander had confided to him.
For a moment the King hesitated before the temptation, but it was a meanness of which he was incapable.
"No, General," he said, as he sheathed his sword; "the Chancellor will retire to his house, and doubtless give us his word to remain there till we are resolved how to deal with his case. I fancy," he continued, with a defiant look at Turbo, "that we have found a method of settling our differences amicably."
The Chancellor recognised that he had aroused a spirit in the King which it would be well to let cool. There came vividly before him the ominous scene when the long rapier had fallen into his pupil's hands, and the kind of awe he had experienced then was upon him now. So he too sheathed his sword, and, having passed his word as the King suggested, left the room.
"Has your majesty any further orders for me," said the officer, saluting.