"Very well; I agree to that. Arrange the time and place with my second, Mr. Rattleton."

Frank sat down, picked up an ill.u.s.trated paper, and seemed deeply interested in the pictures.

Ditson drew Rattleton aside.

"My princ.i.p.al," said he, swelling with importance, "demands that this meeting take place at once."

"Great Scott!" exploded Harry. "I object to this sort of business. It is outrageous! If one of them should be seriously wounded, what excuse can be made?"

"We'll find some excuse that will go."

"But what if one of them should be killed?"

"I hardly think anything as serious as that will occur."

"But should it, there would be an investigation, and expulsion and disgrace, if nothing worse, would overtake us."

"Oh, well, if you are afraid, just go back and tell Mr. Merriwell to apologize here and now, and I think Mr. Diamond will let him off."

Harry looked at Merriwell and then shook his head.

"He'll never do that," he said, hoa.r.s.ely. "We'll have to arrange this duel. There is no other way for it."

Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three blood runs hot and swift in the veins of a youth. It is then that he will do many wild and reckless things--things which will cause him to stand appalled when he considers them in after years.

Frank believed that in order to retain his own self respect and the respect of his comrades he must meet Diamond and give him satisfaction in any manner he might designate.

But there was another reason why Frank was so willing to meet the Virginian. Merriwell was an expert fencer. At Fardale he had been the champion of the school, and he had taken some lessons while traveling.

He had thoroughly studied the trick of disarming his adversary, a trick which is known to every French fencing master, but is thought little of by them.

He believed that he could repeatedly disarm Diamond.

His adventures in various parts of the world had made him somewhat less cautious than he naturally would have been and so he trusted everything to his ability to get the best of the Virginian.

Roland Ditson longed to force Merriwell to squeal. He did not fancy Frank knew anything of fencing, and he thought Merriwell would soon lose his nerve when he saw himself toyed with by Diamond.

And Diamond had promised not to seriously wound the fellow he hated.

The meeting was arranged as quietly as possible, and the freshmen who were to witness it slipped out of Billy's by twos and threes and strode away.

Thirty minutes later, in a small, stuffy room, two lads, with their coats and vests off and their sleeves turned back, faced each other, rapiers in hand.

"Ready, gentlemen!" called Ditson.

They made ready.

"On guard!"

The position was a.s.sumed.

Then came the command that set them at it.

In less than twenty seconds the spectators, who kept back as well as possible, had seen something they never beheld before. They saw two beardless lads fighting with deadly weapons and using skill that was marvelous.

It took Jack Diamond far less than twenty seconds to discover that Frank Merriwell was a swordsman of astonishing skill. He had expected to toy with the Northerner, but he found himself engaged with one who met every stroke like a professional.

A great feeling of relief came over Harry Rattleton.

"Whee jiz!" he muttered. "Merry is a cooler at it! I believe he's Diamond's match!"

With Diamond astonishment gave way to fury. Was it possible that this fellow was to get the best of him at everything? He fought savagely, and Ditson turned white as a ghost when he saw the Virginian making mad thrusts at the breast of the lad he hated.

"He's forgotten his promise--he's forgotten!" huskily whispered Ditson.

"What if he should run Merriwell through the body?"

Then came a cry of anger from Diamond and a cry of surprise and relief from the spectators.

Frank Merriwell, with that peculiar twisting movement of his wrist, had torn the rapier from the Virginian's hand.

The blade fell clanging to the floor, and Merriwell stepped back, with the point of his rapier lowered.

Snarling savagely, Diamond made a catlike spring and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the weapon he had lost.

"On guard!" he cried, madly. "The end is not yet! I'll kill you or you'll kill me!"

There was a clash of steel, and then the fight was on with more fury than before.

Diamond was utterly reckless. He left a dozen openings where Frank could have run him through. But Merriwell was working to repeat the trick of a few seconds before.

The frightened spectators were beginning to think of intervening, when once again Diamond was disarmed.

At the same moment there came a heavy knocking at the door.

One fellow, who had been on guard, ran in from a corridor and cried:

"It's the faculty! Somebody has given them wind of this!"

"Here! here!" called a freshman. "Follow me!"

They did so, and he led them to a back window, out of which they clambered.

Diamond was the last to get out, and just as he touched the ground somebody came around the corner and grabbed him.

"I have one of them!" shouted a voice, which he recognized as belonging to one of the faculty.

He struggled to break away, but could not.

Then somebody dashed back to his side, caught hold of him, and with wonderful strength tore him from the grasp of the man.