I doubt that I could have done the trick had it been broad day instead of moonlight.

The dim light aided me.

Also was I aided by divining, the moment in advance, what he had in mind.

It was the time attack, a common but perilous trick that every novice knows, that has laid on his back many a good man who attempted it, and that is so fraught with danger to the perpetrator that swordsmen are not enamoured of it.
We had been at work barely a minute, when I knew under all his darting, flashing show of offence that Fortini meditated this very time attack.

He desired of me a thrust and lunge, not that he might parry it but that he might time it and deflect it by the customary slight turn of the wrist, his rapier point directed to meet me as my body followed in the lunge.