"The duke! The duke!"
The master of the mountain pass heard also, and felt at that moment a sudden thrill of premonition. The guerdon; the quittance; could it be possible after all, the end was not far? He could not believe it, yet a paroxysm of fury seized him; his strength became redoubled; wherever his sword touched a trooper fell.
But like a wave, recovering from the recoil, the soldiers of Friedwald broke upon his doomed band with a force manifold augmented; broke and carried the flanks with it, for the assaulting parties to the right and left were dismayed by the strength unexpectedly hurled against the center. The bulky Flemish, the lithe Spaniard, the lofty trooper of Friedwald, overflowed the shattered line of the marauders.
"Duke Robert!" and "Friedwald!" shouted the Austrian band.
"Cowards! Would you give way?" cried the free baron, striking among them. "Fools! Better the sword than the rope. Come!"
But in his frenzied efforts to rally his men the master of Hochfels found himself face to face with the leader of the already victorious troops. At the sight of him the bastard paused; his breast rose and fell with his labored breathing; his sword was dyed red, also his arms, his clothes; from his forehead the blood ran down over his beard. His eyes rolled like those of an animal; he seemed something inhuman; an incarnation of baffled purpose.
"If it is reprisal you want, Sir Duke, you shall have it," he panted.
"Reprisal!" exclaimed Robert of Friedwald, scornfully. "The best you can offer is your life."
And with that they closed. Evading the strokes of his more bulky antagonist, the younger man's sword repeatedly sought the vulnerable part of the other's armor. The free baron's strength became exhausted; his blows rang harmlessly, or struck the empty air.
A sensation of pain admonished him of his own disability. About him his band had melted away; doggedly had they given up their lives beneath sword, mace and poniard. The ground was strewn with the slain; riderless horses were galloping up the road. The free baron breathed yet harder; before his eyes he seemed to see only blood.