You are quite sure you will not hurt me ?" "Quite sure." "Is the Sword very sharp ?" "O no--only stand as still as a statue.

Now!" In an instant the atmosphere was transformed to Bathsheba's eyes.
Beams of light caught from the low sun's rays, above, around, in front of her, well-nigh shut out earth and heaven--all emitted in the marvellous evolutions of Troy's reflecting blade, which seemed everywhere at once, and yet nowhere specially.

These circling gleams were accompanied by a keen rush that was almost a whistling--also springing from all sides of her at once.

In short, she was enclosed in a firmament of light, and of sharp hisses, resembling a sky-full of meteors close at hand.
Never since the broadsword became the national weapon had there been more dexterity shown in its management than by the hands of Sergeant Troy, and never had he been in such splendid temper for the performance as now in the evening sunshine among the ferns with Bathsheba.

It may safely be asserted with respect to the closeness of his cuts, that had it been possible for the edge of the sword to leave in the air a permanent substance wherever it flew past, the space left untouched would have been almost a mould of Bathsheba's figure.
Behind the luminous streams of this _aurora militaris_, she could see the hue of Troy's sword arm, spread in a scarlet haze over the space covered by its motions, like a twanged harpstring, and behind all Troy himself, mostly facing her; sometimes, to show the rear cuts, half turned away, his eye nevertheless always keenly measuring her breadth and outline, and his lips tightly closed in sustained effort.