Their fierce charge was, for a moment, irresistible; it bore headlong all before it. For a moment the Germans gave way, shaken and confused. For a moment they recoiled under the shock of that desperate charge.
As Captain Derevaux spurred his horse against the enemy, twenty blades glittered against him. The first would have pierced his chest had not Hal struck up the blade with a quick move.
To pause was impossible. Though the French horses were forced through a bristling forest of steel, the charge availed little.
Hal waved the Eagle aloft, as the captain looked around at the few who were left and shouted:
"You are the sons of the Old Guard! Die like them!"
"Surrender!" came a cry from in front.
Hal looked back once more on the fragment of the troop, and raised the flag higher aloft, as he muttered to himself:
"This will be the end. I wish I could have seen Chester once more; good old Chester!"
Hot and blinded, with an open gash in his shoulder where a sword had struck a moment before, but with his eyes flashing and a smile on his lips, the young captain cried his reply to the command to surrender:
"Have we fought so poorly that you think we shall give up now?"