Into the thick of this mêlée dashed Sir Percy de Bohun, with his friends on either side of him.
But a moment sufficed for him to wrest the Lady from her assailant and to deliver her over to the care of Diana and the Duchess, who carried her swooning (whether with laughter or emotion ’twould be difficult to set down), to the Room.
In another second, taking his silver-fringed gloves from his pocket he threw them into the masked face of Sir Robin McTart.
The little Baronet, who had both temper and vanity, which brace now got the upperhand of his cowardice, and, believing that Lady Peggy’s eyes were upon him, that Sir Percy was at the bottom of the Thames, and with full foreknowledge that he could run away before the meeting could be arranged, caught the gloves as they struck and flung them back into their owner’s covered countenance.
“Take that! ’sdeath!” squeaked Sir Robin, now much the more valiant as he beheld the Vicar screwing his way toward him through the excited crowds.
[Illustration: I am Sir Robin McTart!...]
“Unmask, and show yourself for who you are!” cried Percy, every one of his companions echoing:
“Unmask! Unmask! Unmask, or we’ll run ye!”
“Willingly,” responded the trembling gentleman from Kent, tugging at the slip-knot in his mask-string.
“I am Sir Robin McTart! Who, the devil, are you?”
“I am Sir Percy de Bohun!” replied his opponent, as both masks came off at the same instant, and the two confronted one another, staring with four eyes that fairly popped in their sockets.
’Twould be hard to say which of these two was the more astounded, although Sir Percy’s amazement had quite a different flavor from the Baronet’s abject terror.
“You! Sir Percy de Bohun!” he quavered, turning ashy pale. “I’ll not believe it. ’Tis a lie!”
“You! Sir Robin McTart!” replied Percy, hotly. “Gentlemen,” turning to his friends, “I pray you bear me out in this, not to the exclusion of my challenge of this impostor, which holds good until one or t’other of us sheds blood, but for the preservation of the honor of a valiant gentleman, who is not far off of us now. That this weazen wretch may meet his dues, for not only does he masquerade his face, but seeks to usurp the character and name of one whom we all know to be both handsome, brave and courageous.”