“Who dares lay hand on God’s servant?” cried he, in a deep, stern voice. “This holy man is no captive for such as you. I will lead him hence forthwith.”
“There go two words to that bargain,” retorted Croquart, who, having begun to realize that he had to do with a mortal being after all, was fast regaining his wonted swaggering insolence. “Who art thou, fellow, to dare to thrust thyself into my camp, and speak so boldly of setting free mine own captive? Here be cords enow to bind thee as well as him, and our shafts will find their way through thy coat-of-plate as easily as through his grey frock.”
“Silence, dog!” thundered the unknown, who was no other than Sir Alured de Claremont, fulfilling his vow of expiation. “If thou art not a coward as well as a thief and a murderer, I defy thee, in this holy man’s quarrel, to meet me with equal arms on this spot, man to man and lance to lance; and may God defend the right!”
Foaming with rage, the savage leader roared for his war-horse, and in a trice sat erect in his saddle with levelled lance, fiercely confronting his challenger.
The cowed robbers held their breath to watch the encounter, in terrified expectation of they knew not what. But how that encounter was to end neither they nor any man living could have foreseen.
Ere the signal for the charge could be given, Croquart’s noble horse (which had borne him gallantly through countless frays) was all at once seen to give a violent start, and began to rear and plunge as if maddened with sudden terror. Then, heedless of its rider’s cruel spurs, and the grasp of his iron hand on its bridle, it gave one frantic bound, and tore away straight toward the spot where the curving ridge ended abruptly in a sheer precipice of more than a hundred feet.
The cry of horror from the lookers-on was barely heard when, with one headlong rush, horse and rider were seen to vanish over the brink of the abyss. There was a stifled cry, a dull crash, and man and beast lay together at the foot of the precipice, a crushed, shapeless, mangled mass.
“It is the hand of Heaven!” said Brother Michael, solemnly. “May God have mercy on his soul!”
But the pitying words were drowned in the clamorous cries with which the terrified robbers threw themselves at the feet of this fearful man, who they firmly believed had destroyed their leader by supernatural power, and was able to bring down at any moment the same swift and certain destruction on themselves.
“Have mercy and spare us, holy father, and we will do what penance thou wilt.”