'and now i 'll fight your ghost , ' he said , moving forward in a flurry of strokes , 'and you 'll notice that our ghost here does n't actually know how to fence ... because he only knows stage-fencing , you see ... where the whole point , of course , is simply to hit the other fellow 's sword with a suitably impressive metallic noise ... so that you can die very dramatically merely because he 's carefully thrust his sword under your armpit ... ' the ghost was forced to retreat under the onslaught , until he fell backwards over the unconscious body of christine .