"Escaped, by Heaven!" answered Oliver Lascelles, who galloped up at that moment, and cleared the garden-wall at a flying leap. "There he goes on the bald-faced nag. A hundred to one the standard is lost!" A muttered exclamation of regret and mortification burst from us all on beholding the bearer of the eagle riding at full speed after the retreating cavalry. "S’death!" cried Macleod, rushing to his horse; "he has escaped by the rear. Come on, gentlemen, we will have a steeple-chase for it!" "Stole away! hark forward!" exclaimed Lascelles, with a reckless laugh, as his nag once more cleared the wall. The mounted officers all pushed onward at full gallop; but they were soon outstripped by my noble grey, which rapidly brought me up with the fugitive. On finding himself nearer the French rear-guard than the victors, and perhaps disdaining to fly from a single foe, young Regnier reined up on an eminence near the Amato, and with his sabre lashed by the knot to his wrist, with bent brows, and eyes flashing fire with determination, he awaited my onset. His horse was a small French trooper; the straight neck, drooping ears, and close flanks of which showed its inferiority of breed when compared with my high-headed, bold-eyed, and bluff-chested charger. I charged him with such fury that both man and horse were almost overturned by the shock; and parrying his thrust, I dealt a blow which had certainly cleft his jaws, but for the thick brass scales of his shako. He was stunned, and reeled in his saddle for a moment, striking blindly and at random. At that instant the French cavalry trumpets sounded an _advance_, and I was compelled to press him more boldly than ever. Grasping the colour-staff with my bridle hand, the flag was nearly rent between us; while he endeavoured to hew off the eagle with his sabre. He glared at me like a tiger and cut fiercely at my left hand, which the twisted reins and thick military glove alone saved from being slashed off; but at the second blow his sabre turned in his grasp, and the blade was shivered into fragments on the stout ash-pole. In the heat of the moment, my sword was raised to cut him down: he was completely at my mercy. He was young, brave, and handsome. I remembered how his countryman had spared me but an hour before, and could I be less generous? Determined, however, to carry off the colours, I grasped him by the belt, placed my foot under his left stirrup, and hurled him to the ground on the other side. The moment he let go the staff, I struck spurs into my grey, and galloped off with the prize to our own troops; who had watched the combat from the eminence on which the contested cottage stood.