The flimsy and treacherous blade went to flinders, and the would-be robber was left staring at the guard suddenly grown light in his hand.
With a quick backward step, Sholto slashed his last assailant across the upper arm, effectually disabling him.

Then, catching his heel in a rut, he fell backward, and it would have gone ill with him but for the action of his father.

The brawny one was profoundly disgusted at having to waste his strength and science upon such a rabble, and now, at the moment of his son's fall, he suddenly dropped his sword and seized a couple of torches which had fallen upon the pavement.

With these primitive weapons he fell like a whirlwind upon the foe, taking them unexpectedly in flank.

A sweep of his mighty arms right and left sent two of the assailants down, one with the whole side of his face scarified from brow to jaw, and the other with his mouth at once widened by the blow and hermetically closed by the blazing tar.
Next, Sholto's pair of assailants received each a mighty buffet and went down with cracked sconces.