Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/346

334 heart grew sick as she heard, as she waited, as she judged him by the fast-failing light a horse’s length before his men—with only Tignonville beside him.

She held her breath—would the shock never come? If Badelon had not seized her rein and forced her forward, she would not have moved. And then, even as she moved, they met! With yells and wild cries and a mare’s savage scream, the two bands crashed together in a huddle of fallen or rearing horses, of flickering weapons, of thrusting men, of grapples hand-to-hand. What happened, what was happening to any one, who it was fell, stabbed through and through by four, or who were those who still fought single combats, twisting round one another’s horses, those on her right and on her left, she could not tell. For Badelon dragged her on with whip and spur, and two horsemen—who obscured her view—galloped in front of her, and rode down bodily the only man who undertook to bar her passage. She had a glimpse of that man’s face, as his horse, struck in the act of turning, fell sideways on him; and she knew it, in its agony of terror, though she had seen it but once. It was the face of the man whose eyes had sought hers from the steps of the church in Angers; the lean man in black, who had turned soldier of the Church—to his misfortune.

Through? Yes, through, the way was clear before them! The fight with its screams and curses died away behind them. The horses swayed and all but sank under them. But Badelon knew it no time for mercy; iron-shod hoofs rang on the road behind, and at any moment the pursuers might be on their heels. He flogged on until the cots of the hamlet appeared on either side of the way; on, until the road forked and the Countess with strange readiness cried “The left!”—on, until the beach appeared below them at the foot of a sharp pitch, and beyond the beach the slow heaving grey of the ocean.