Like a tiger he turned upon me, and I was quick to see why Solan
had been chosen for this important duty.
Never in all my life have I seen such wondrous swordsmanship and
such uncanny agility as that ancient bag of bones displayed. He was
in forty places at the same time, and before I had half a chance
to awaken to my danger he was like to have made a monkey of me,
and a dead monkey at that.
It is strange how new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessed
ability to meet them.
That day in the buried chamber beneath the palace of Salensus Oll
I learned what swordsmanship meant, and to what heights of sword
mastery I could achieve when pitted against such a wizard of the
blade as Solan.
For a time he liked to have bested me; but presently the latent
possibilities that must have been lying dormant within me for a
lifetime came to the fore, and I fought as I had never dreamed a
human being could fight.
That that duel-royal should have taken place in the dark recesses
of a cellar, without a single appreciative eye to witness it has
always seemed to me almost a world calamity--at least from the
viewpoint Barsoomian, where bloody strife is the first and greatest
consideration of individuals, nations, and races.
I was fighting to reach the switch, Solan to prevent me; and, though
we stood not three feet from it, I could not win an inch toward
it, for he forced me back an inch for the first five minutes of
our battle.
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