A roar answered him, and in that moment he knew that he was followed indeed. On they poured, over the dying horse, over his rider’s body—no time to see if he were alive or dead—and hurled themselves on the bayonets. . . . Five minutes of the hottest hand-to-hand fighting ensued—a whirling vision of fierce, convulsed faces, of straining bodies, of red steel, then of a sudden swaying movement as the soldiers gave before the terrible scythe-blades and the scarcely less terrible pitchforks, and fled along the road, mingled with their exultant pursuers. The bridge was won. At the further end the Marquis paused a moment, sword in hand and panting, to look back. The light had not failed so utterly but that he could distinguish, among the human wreckage on the bridge, the bulk of the dead horse and a little group beside it. A second’s hesitation and he ran back. Louis was lying senseless in the arms of Laurent Robineau, while another man dashed on him the river water from his hat. “Only stunned, Monsieur le Marquis, praise the saints,” said the latter, looking up; and Gilbert, drawing a long breath, waited for no more but ran on after his men. But the fight was practically over, for with every moment it turned more and more to rout. Royrand and Sapinaud had driven in the right flank; at the second bridge the double mass of fugitives swept back the defenders with it. In vain De Marcé and Boulard tried to rally them; panic had gripped them, and all night long they streamed through the affrighted villages, till at daybreak even Saint Hermand, seven leagues away, woke to the clatter of the flying cavalry. But the end of the fight had no concern for Louis, though the treatment to which he was subjected was not long in rousing him. Indeed, as he put up an instinctive hand to ward off the fresh avalanche which was impending, he muttered something about death by drowning. After a little he was able to get with assistance to his feet, and dizzily to survey the scene of slaughter at the farther end of the bridge. Then his eyes fell on his own dead horse, and the satisfaction died out of his face. “My poor Saladin!” he said brokenly, and kneeling down kissed the star on his forehead. Soon afterwards, not knowing in the least how he had got there, he found himself lying by the river, almost underneath the bridge, and here he went to sleep for another indeterminate period. After this he had a hazy sensation of being carried a long way, in the midst of a great many people, on something rather uncomfortable. Oddly enough, when he found himself laid upon the bed in his and Gilbert’s little room at L’Oie, his brain became instantaneously and miraculously clear, so that he immediately announced his intention of following Gilbert and the other chiefs to the Four Roads. He was only induced to abandon this idea by the threats of the surgeon whom the Marquis had sent to him, and by the fact that during the altercation his head began to ache consumedly.