Count Hannibal

"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.