Saddles were emptied, and steeds and riders went down on every side; but Cecil's Servians, despite his fiery example, could make no impression on the Turks. Resolute in aspect, beetle-browed, keen-eyed, and hawk-nosed, they come on with heads stooped in full career, their cries of 'Allah, Allah!' rending the air; and whenever a Servian, sword in hand, attempted to close, their couched lances bristled against his arm or his horse's breast; so the former pressed on, in an invulnerable line, till Cecil's troopers fairly gave way, and quitted the field on the spur with bridles loose, sweeping him away with them, for Servian courage and Servian honour were sorely tarnished on that day in front of Zaitchar; nor did the cavalry and other fugitives fairly stop till they reached a place called Balgivac, some thirteen miles from the field of battle, where Medvidovski and his staff had halted. Dispirited and disgusted with the result of the day--not that he had any vital interest in it--but, wet, cold, weary and exhausted, Cecil flung himself on the bare earth, like nearly all around him, without food or rations of any kind; and thus he was found by Stanley, Pelham and another English volunteer, who shared his brandy-flask with them all, and they spent the remainder of the night in comparing notes of the past day's heartless work, reviling the Servians, their want of mettle and discipline, and drawing comparisons between them and 'our own fellows,' that were far from flattering to the troops of His Majesty King Milano Obrenovitch. CHAPTER XV. A RIDE FOR LIFE OR DEATH! Cecil's troop, which had lost heavily in the encounter with the Turkish lancers, escorted some of the wounded and sick to the camp at Deligrad, passing through a beautiful valley, and skirting the slopes of Mount Urtanj, one of the greatest hills in Servia. The way was of the roughest and steepest kind; his progress was slow, with a convoy of blood-stained, tattered and dying creatures. It was a march he never forgot, and from one circumstance, perhaps, more than all. He met _en route_ the old village pope (or priest) of Palenka, mounted on one of the shaggy, hardy little ponies, and from him--amid many an exclamation of lamentation, sorrow and anathema--he learned distinct tidings of the fate of Margarita, and that her remains had been found by some woodcutters at the base of the cliff below the Krall Lazar chapel, and a storm of terrible emotion swelled up in Cecil's heart, as he listened to the broken accents of the priest. Great was his horror and great his pity! He forgot all the vengeance he personally owed Guebhard in this new, unthought-of and more terrible debt, and sadly and touchingly the rare beauty of the dead girl and her devotion to himself came back to memory now!