"I mean, Madame--But there they are! Good Carlat! Brave Carlat! He has
done well!"
"Carlat?"
"Ay, there they are! And you are mistress in your own land! At last you
are mistress, and you have me to thank for it! See!" And heedless in
his exultation whether Badelon understood or not, he pointed to a place
before them where the road wound between two low hills. Over the green
shoulder of one of these, a dozen bright points caught and reflected the
last evening light; while as he spoke a man rose to his feet on the
hillside above, and began to make signs to persons below. A pennon, too,
showed an instant over the shoulder, fluttered, and was gone.
Badelon looked as they looked. The next instant he uttered a low oath,
and dragged his horse across the front of the party.
"Pierre!" he cried to the man on his left, "ride for your life! To my
lord, and tell him we are ambushed!" And as the trained soldier wheeled
about and spurred away, the sacker of Rome turned a dark scowling face on
Tignonville. "If this be your work," he hissed, "we shall thank you for
it in hell! For it is where most of us will lie to-night! They are
Montsoreau's spears, and they have those with them are worse to deal with
than themselves!" Then in a different tone, and throwing off all
disguise, "Men to the front!" he shouted. "And you, Madame, to the rear
quickly, and the women with you! Now, men, forward, and draw! Steady!
Steady! They are coming!"
There was an instant of confusion, disorder, panic; horses jostling one
another, women screaming and clutching at men, men shaking them off and
forcing their way to the van. Fortunately the enemy did not fall on at
once, as Badelon expected, but after showing themselves in the mouth of
the valley, at a distance of three hundred paces, hung for some reason
irresolute. This gave Badelon time to array his seven swords in front;
but real resistance was out of the question, as he knew. And to none
seemed less in question than to Tignonville.
When the truth, and what he had done, broke on the young man, he sat a
moment motionless with horror. It was only when Badelon had twice
summoned him with opprobrious words that he awoke to the relief of
action. Even after that he hung an instant trying to meet the Countess's
eyes, despair in his own; but it was not to be. She had turned her head,
and was looking back, as if thence only and not from him could help come.
It was not to him she turned; and he saw it, and the justice of it. And
silent, grim, more formidable even than old Badelon, the veteran fighter,
who knew all the tricks and shifts of the melee, he spurred to the
flank of the line.