But instead of this I had to turn towards the other two who came at the charge down the hill and were now close upon us.
I had just time to leap aside from the first and let him overrun himself when he shot almost upon the sword of the thick-set man, who came up the hill shouting to us to stop.

The second man I engaged, and a stanch blade I found him, though fighting for as dirty a cause as ever man crossed swords in.
"Halt!" came the voice of command again--the voice I knew so well--"in the name of the State I bid you cease!" It was the voice of Karl, Prince of Plassenburg.
"We must take the rough with the smooth now.

We must kill them, every one, like stanch men of the Mark!" cried Von Reuss.

"There is no safety for any of us else." And in a moment we were at it, the Prince furiously assaulting the second of the bravoes who came down the hill.

More coolly than I had given him credit for, Von Reuss stuffed a silken kerchief into the hole in his shoulder, and repossessed himself of his weapon in his other hand.
It was the briskest kind of a bicker that ensued for a little while there on the bosky, broomy hill-side in the evening light.