She reached the verge of a pit in the middle of the ferns.
Troy stood in the bottom, looking up towards her.
"I heard you rustling through the fern before I saw you," he said, coming up and giving her his hand to help her down the slope.
The pit was a saucer-shaped concave, naturally formed, with a top diameter of about thirty feet, and shallow enough to allow the sunshine to reach their heads.

Standing in the centre, the sky overhead was met by a circular horizon of fern: this grew nearly to the bottom of the slope and then abruptly ceased.

The middle within the belt of verdure was floored with a thick flossy carpet of moss and grass intermingled, so yielding that the foot was half-buried within it.
"Now," said Troy, producing the sword, which, as he raised it into the sunlight, gleamed a sort of greeting, like a living thing, "first, we have four right and four left cuts; four right and four left thrusts.

Infantry cuts and guards are more interesting than ours, to my mind; but they are not so swashing.

They have seven cuts and three thrusts.