The ford over the Aven at last! All that shining water had come down from Pont-aux-Rochers! What had it seen there?
The grey did not like it; he refused to enter. Twice Aymar lashed and spurred him; then, desperate, he jumped off, and, in water himself to mid-thigh, tugged him over. It had meant fresh delay, but nothing short of a miracle could save the Eperviers now. Ironically, the quarryman's horse went better after the contest. But all the last three miles his rider's mind seemed to revolve round one word. Nothing but a miracle . . . a miracle. . . . O God, send a miracle!
At the cross-roads, not a sign. Had they passed or no? A little way off in a field, a girl was herding goats. He called to her.
"Yes, Monsieur, some Chouans—a great many—went by about an hour ago. There has been firing since. They went along there—towards the bridge."
Without a word Aymar set spurs to his horse. There had been no miracle. But at least he might be in time to die with them.
Even that was denied him. A mile or so farther along the road turned sharply to the left; and here, where it was wide and tree-shadowed, and had a spacious grassy margin on one side, he saw the first fugitives of all. There were perhaps a dozen; they ran past him in twos and threes, panic-pursued. Not one had a visible wound. They had just run . . . his men.
He did not try to stay them, for even in that hasty passing he had seen that they were his newer, his least reliable recruits. Then he came on one fallen by the roadside, with another bending over him. For an instant he pulled up.
"What has happened at the bridge?" he asked, but his voice stuck in his throat, for he knew.
"It was a cursed trap!" answered the man, panting. He did not look up. "The Blues . . . ambushed there . . . they have made mincemeat of us. . . . See, Yannik, if I tie this round your leg you could get on farther."
"O God!" said L'Oiseleur, and rode on—rode on blindly to see more men running under the trees on either side, to hear himself at last called by name, to find himself then in the midst of a small body retreating with some semblance of order, and, clutching his bridle convulsively and looking up at him with wild eyes, his youngest officer, Clément de Soulanges, a boy of twenty—to hear him crying out of the clamour, "La Rocheterie, La Rocheterie, why were you not with us? It was awful . . . I have got away what I could . . . and I think Magloire Le Bihan has got more . . . he had the rearguard . . . but all the rest——"