He spurred his horse up to the arch as the sergeant stepped forward. The beast, being restive, rubbed against the ladder with his flank and shook it violently just as Tristram dislodged the swarm overhead. Captain Barker reached out, however, and caught them deftly in the upturned hive. Into it they tumbled plump. But the little man, exasperated by the shock, had now completely lost his temper. With sudden and infernal malice he inverted the beehive and clapped it, bees and all, on the officer's head.
With that he skipped down to the ground, and Tristram, foreseeing mischief, slid down after him quick as thought.
The officer roared like Hercules caught in the shirt of Nessus. Nor for a few seconds could he get rid of his diabolical helmet: for a couple of bees had stung the charger, which began to plunge and caper like a mad thing, scattering the crowd right and left with his hoofs. When at length he shook the hive off, the furious swarm poured out upon the air, dealing vengeance. The soldiers, whose red coats attracted them at once, fled this way and that, howling with pain, pursued now by the bees and now chased into circles by the lashing heels of the grey horse. The poor brute was stung by degrees into a frenzy. With a wild leap, in which his four legs seemed to meet under his belly, he pitched his master clean over the crupper and, as a wind through chaff, swept through the people at a gallop and off along the road towards the town.
"Phew!" whistled Captain John Barker: and stepping quickly to the prostrate officer he whipped the unhappy gentleman's sword from its sheath and handed it to Tristram.
"We'd best get out of this."
"That's not easy. There's a score of soldiers between us and the gate; and the sergeant looks like mischief."
"Bless my soul, what a face I've put on that young man!"
The officer, who had been stunned for a moment by his fall, was soon recalled to life by the pain of the stings. He sat up and looked round. Already his face had about as much feature as a turnip. His eyes were closing fast, and a lump as large as a plover's egg hung on his under-lip.
"Seize those men!" he shouted, and began a string of oaths, but stopped because the utterance caused him agony.
The sergeant, who had been bending over him, drew his side-arm and advanced—a hulking big fellow with a pimply face and an ugly look in his eye.