I let my beast go with a loose head, and there was no need of the spur to urge him to his utmost effort as he bore me to de Leyva. I found him bare-headed and on foot, his face black with smoke and bleeding from wounds. His _toison d'or_ had been shot away, though its jewelled collar still clasped his neck, and his left arm hung useless by his side. He stared at me when I gave him de Rone's answer, to which I added the news that Garabay was dead. Then he laughed through his cracked lips--a laugh that seemed to stick in the knot of his throat, and making me no further reply, waved his sword in the air with a cry on his men for yet another effort, and a forlorn hope at the guns. And they who had never known defeat before answered to his call and came up again--a line of men for whom the bitterness of death was passed. I ought to have gone back to de Rone, but the lust of battle was on me, and for me there was nothing in the world but the black guns behind the continuous flashes, lightening through the thick smoke which the wind was blowing in our faces. My brave horse was killed by a round shot, and as I scrambled up and took my place by de Leyva's side, his features relaxed and he said with a thin smile: 'I have had both my horses killed, Chevalier, or would offer you a mount.' 'We will replace them from Schomberg's reiters,' and the bugles, sounding the attack, cut short all further talk. It was win or lose now--all was staked upon this hazard, and it was well for us that Schomberg was broken, for to protect the men as far as possible from the guns, de Leyva advanced in open files. There was to be no firing. The work was to be all cold steel, and Bayonne knife and Biscay pike were to make a last effort against the long, black, snarling guns, behind which d'Aussonville's ordnance men yelped and danced with glee as each discharge brought down its tale of the mangled and dead. But up the long slope, never flinching, never swerving, one man stepping where another fell, the veteran regiments marched, with their gallant chief at their head. When about fifty paces away, the drift was so thick that we could see nothing save the incessant flashes of light, which possessed but power enough to show themselves. At this moment the bugles rang out shrilly, the ranks closed up like magic, there was one tremendous roar of artillery, and the half of us that were left were in the battery. Here, on the red and slippery corn-stalks, the devilry went on, and men fought more like beasts than human beings. As the heaving mass swayed backwards and forwards, the strong breeze lifted the smoke from the now speechless guns and showed that they were won, but it also showed us another sight, and that was de Rone's broken centre doubling back upon us in utter rout, and behind them a silver line of shining helmets as the King's House charged, led by Henry himself.