Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/366

354 “Not a foot!”

“And at Dreux,” the old man continued with a proud, elated gesture, “when we rode down the German pikemen—they were grass before us, leaves on the wind, thistledown—was it not I who covered your bridle hand, and swerved not in the mêlée?”

“It was! It was!”

“And at St. Quentin, when we fled before the Spaniard—it was his day, you remember, and cost us dear”

“Ay, I was young then,” Tavannes cried in turn, his eyes glistening. “St. Quentin! It was the tenth of August. And you were new with me, and seized my rein—”

“And we rode off together, my lord—of the last, of the last, as God sees me! And striking as we went, so that they left us for easier game.”

“It was so, good sword! I remember it as if it had been yesterday!”

“And at Cerisoles, the Battle of the Plain, in the old Spanish wars, that was most like a joust of all the pitched fields I ever saw—at Cerisoles, where I caught your horse? You mind me? It was in the shock when we broke Guasto’s line”

“At Cerisoles?” Count Hannibal muttered slowly. “Why, man, I”

“I caught your horse, and mounted you afresh? You remember, my lord? And at Landriano, where Leyva turned the tables on us again.”

Count Hannibal stared. “Landriano?” he muttered bluntly. “’Twas in ’29, forty years ago and more! My father, indeed”

“And at Rome—at Rome, my lord? Mon Dieu! in the old days at Rome! When the Spanish company scaled the wall—Ruiz was first, I next—was it not my foot you held? And was it not I who dragged you up, while the