He was a rough fellow, who held no love for these people, and riding amongst them actually upset the woman who had spoken, causing her to shriek aloud.
"Coward!" she cried, picking herself up with difficulty and trembling at his violence.
"Eh!" exclaimed the brute, angered at the taunt. "Now bustle, and keep a civil tongue between your teeth—bustle, I say."
He edged his horse still closer, till the woman fell again, terrified by the close approach of the animal the trooper rode.
"Shame!" cried Tom, his gorge rising. "Do the French then fight with women?"
He had called out in the voice of a woman, and looked, in fact, merely a young girl. But that made little difference to this brute of a trooper. He set his horse in Tom's direction, and looked as if he would actually ride over him. And then there was a sudden and unexpected change; for the young girl displayed the most extraordinary activity. She leaped aside, darted in, and sprang up behind the trooper. For a moment there was a tussle; and then the trooper was lifted from his saddle and tipped out on to the ground. Before the astonished and frightened crowd of women could realize what was happening, or the trooper gather a particle of his scattered wits, the girl was firmly planted in his place, her feet were jammed in the stirrups, and there was presented to all who happened to be looking in that direction as strange a sight as could be well imagined. Shrieks filled the air; men shouted hoarsely to one another, while the troopers standing at their horses' heads leaped into their saddles.
"It is the spy! It is the English spy!" was shouted from the walls. "The spy!" bellowed the bullying soldier whom Tom had unhorsed, making a funnel of his hands and turning to the trooper who was nearest.
"Follow!" came in stentorian tones from the nearest officer.
Then began a race the like of which had never been witnessed outside Ciudad Rodrigo. Tom clapped the heels of his French boots to the flanks of his borrowed horse, while the mantilla that had done him such service, caught by the breeze, went blowing out behind him. Bending low, he sent the animal galloping direct for the hills, smiling grimly as the crack of carbines came from behind him.