“Near go that,” he shouted, “but all’s well that ends well.”
I assented, but I could not help feeling that it had not ended well for me. I was sorely hurt.
Just then we saw the smaller bodies of cavalry stationed on our extreme right and left, and which were now reinforced by the three thousand sabres which we had held in reserve, flash out like arrows from their posts and fall upon the disordered flanks of Sorais’s forces, and that charge decided the issue of the battle. In another minute or two the enemy was in slow and sullen retreat across the little stream, where they once more reformed. Then came another lull, during which I managed to get my second horse, and received my orders to advance from Sir Henry, and then with one fierce, deep-throated roar, with a waving of banners and a wide flashing of steel, the remains of our army took the offensive and began to sweep down, slowly indeed, but irresistibly from the positions they had so gallantly held all day.
At last it was our turn to attack.
On we moved, over the piled-up masses of dead and dying, and were approaching the stream, when suddenly I perceived an extraordinary sight. Galloping wildly towards us, his arms tightly clasped around his horse’s neck, against which his blanched cheek was tightly pressed, was a man arrayed in the full costume of a Zu-Vendi general, but in whom, as he came nearer, I recognized none other than our lost Alphonse. It was impossible even then to mistake those curling mustachios. In a minute he was tearing through our ranks and narrowly escaped being cut down, till at last somebody caught his horse’s bridle, and he was brought to me just as a momentary halt occurred in our advance to allow what remained of our shattered squares to form into line.
“Ah, monsieur,” he gasped out in a voice that was nearly inarticulate with fright, “grace to the sky, it is you! Ah, what I have endured! But you win, monsieur—you win; they fly, the lâches. But listen, monsieur—I forget, it is no good; the Queen is to be murdered tomorrow at the first light in the palace of Milosis; her guards will leave their posts, and the priests are going to kill her. Ah yes! they little thought it, but I was ensconced beneath a banner, and I heard it all.”
“What!” I said, horror-struck; “what do you mean?”
“What I say, monsieur; that devil of a Nasta he went last night to settle the affair with the Archbishop (Agon). The guard will leave open the little gate leading from the great stair and go away, and Nasta and Agon’s priests will come in and kill her. Themselves they would not kill her.”
“Come with me,” I said, and, shouting to the staff-officer next to me to take over the command, I snatched his bridle and galloped as hard as I could for the spot, between a quarter and half a mile off, where I saw the royal pennon flying, and where I knew that I should find Curtis if he were still alive. On we tore, our horses clearing heaps of dead and dying men, and splashing through pools of blood; on past the long broken lines of spearmen to where, mounted on the white stallion Nyleptha had sent to him as a parting gift, I saw Sir Henry’s form towering above the generals who surrounded him.
Just as we reached him the advance began again. A bloody cloth was bound around his head, but I saw that his eye was as bright and keen as ever. Beside him was old Umslopogaas, his axe red with blood,
