"Yes, it is the foe!" said Rignomer, seizing the signal horn to raise it to his lips--but he had no power to do so. Horror, paralyzing terror, awe which shook every limb, seized upon the brave man. His hair bristled; voice and hand refused their service. Rigid with fear, he stared at the wooded height before and above him, which suddenly seemed alive. A warrior sprang from behind every tree; every bush; yet it was not these hundreds of Alemanni that terrified the battle-tried Batavian, but another spectacle. Sometimes in a full glare of light, sometimes dimly seen by the flame of two blazing torches, swung in circles by two horsemen riding at his right and left, a powerful figure of superhuman stature on a grayish-white horse came dashing down from the height toward him. White hair and a floating beard waved around a fierce but majestic countenance, above which a bird-monster, whose like Rignomer had never seen, seemed to flap its white wings threateningly against the mercenary as the vision rushed onward in silence, a huge spear thrust before him, a long dark cloak flowing back from his shoulders like a cloud; then, when close at hand, the horseman shouted: "Odin! Odin has you all!" The German flung down spear and shield and, with the cry: "Odin is upon us! Odin is leading them! All is lost," ran back to the ditch at full speed. Two of his comrades followed his example, and all three leaped into the ditch shouting: "All is lost! Odin is upon us! Fly!" Rignomer was considered the bravest of his race, so even the Batavians, who were too far off to understand his words, were infected by his example; for they saw their leader unarmed, running with every sign of the utmost terror from the ditch toward the northern gate to tear it open and vanish in the camp. "Fly! Fly! All is lost!" Most of the men had understood this and, with the same shouts, they now climbed up the wall or poured through the open gate. Brinno alone had not fled from the post: at Rignomer's cry, also greatly alarmed, he had leaped behind the nearest tree, but here, looking sharply at the terrible horseman, he recovered his composure: "Nonsense!" he called after his flying comrades. "His horse has only four feet, not eight. That is not _he_!" He stepped forward bravely with levelled spear, but the next instant was thrown down by the Duke's charger and, directly after, about thirty mounted men leaped into the ditch, which was now no longer defended, and dashed to the right and left in pursuit of the fugitives who were running along the bottom. The space around the gate was almost empty, swept clean in an instant.