Dinner had already been announced, and the Earl of Upnor knew that his time was short, and so he put the anecdote to a quick and merciful end as he and the other dinner-guests trooped down the garden path to the big house. In the story, Upnor delivered a sort of homily to Bob Shaftoe, putting him in his place and expounding on the glories of the class system, and then Fenleigh, who had by that time forded the river and come round behind, galloped toward Bob and tried to take him with a sword-thrust from behind. Bob heard him coming at the last instant and whipped his spadroon around to parry the blow. Fenleigh’s rapier was deflected into the croup of Bob’s miserable horse, which reared up. Bob could not manage his horse because he was busy fending off a second blow from Fenleigh (though also, it was clearly implied, because men of his status did not really belong on horseback in the first place). Bob won the exchange nevertheless by almost severing Fenleigh’s right arm above the elbow, but he payed for it by being obliged to fall off his horse (extremely funny to the polished equestrians here). He landed balanced "like a sack of oats" on the stone parapet of the bridge. Upnor and his other companion were galloping toward him with pistols drawn. Shaftoe was so terrified he lost his balance and fell into the river, where (and here the story became suspiciously vague, for they had reached the house, and were deploying to their places at the long dinner-table) he either drowned or was slain by a volley of pistol-balls from Upnor, who stood on the bridge using him for target practice as he floundered along in the current of the river. "And what is a river but a lake that has failed to stay within its ordained limits, and now tumbles helplessly toward the Abyss?"